Electromagnetic Pulse (33 page)

The distribution system is a chokepoint in the US food infrastructure. Supermarkets typically carry only enough food to provision the local population for 1 to 3 days. Supermarkets replenish their stocks on virtually a daily basis from regional warehouses that usually carry enough food to supply a multi-county area for about one month. The large quantities of food kept in regional warehouses will do little to alleviate a crisis if it cannot be distributed to the population in a timely manner. Distribution depends largely on a functioning transportation system.

MITIGATION AND RESPONSIBILITY

Federal, state, and regional governments should establish plans for assuring that food is available to the general population in case of major disruption of the food infrastructure. Planning to locate, preserve, deliver, distribute, and ration existing stockpiles of processed and unprocessed food, including food stockpiled by the Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, and other government agencies, will be an important component of maintaining the food supply. Planning to protect, deliver, and ration food from regional warehouses, under conditions where an EMP attack has disrupted the power, transportation, and other infrastructures for a protracted period, should be a priority. Plans to process and deliver private and government grain stockpiles would significantly supplement the processed food stored in regional warehouses. According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistical Service, total private grain stockpiles in the United States amount to over 255 million metric tons. Federal grain stockpiles held by the Commodity Credit Corporation exceed 1.7 million metric tons, with 1.6 million metric tons of that amount dedicated to the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust for Overseas Emergency. Planning should include an assessment of how much food the population of the United States would need in an emergency when the food infrastructure is disrupted for a protracted period. Food stockpiles should be increased if existing stockpiles of food appear to be inadequate.

Presidential initiatives have designated the Department of Homeland Security as the lead agency responsible for the security of the food infrastructure, overseeing and working with the Department of Agriculture. Currently, under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (the Stafford Act), the President “is authorized and directed to assure that adequate stocks of food will be ready and conveniently available for emergency mass feeding or distribution” in the United States. The Stafford Act should be amended to provide for plans to locate, protect, and distribute existing private and government stockpiles of food, and to provide plans for distribution of existing food stockpiles to the general population in the event of a national emergency.

WATER SUPPLY INFRASTRUCTURE

National-level responsibilities have already been assigned to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect the water infrastructure from terrorist threats. A recent Presidential Directive establishes new national policy for protection of our Nation’s critical infrastructures against terrorist threats that could cause catastrophic health effects.
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EPA is the designated lead agency for protection of drinking water and water treatment systems. DHS and EPA should ensure that protection includes EMP attack among the recognized threats to the water infrastructure.

EMERGENCY SERVICES

VULNERABILITIES

An EMP attack will result in diminished capabilities of emergency services during a time of greatly increased demand upon them. The EMP vulnerability of emergency services systems is primarily due to the susceptibility of computer and communications equipment, and secondarily due to likely commercial electric power outages. Recent test results indicate that some failures of computers and network equipment can be expected at low EMP field levels; at higher levels, much more pervasive equipment failures are expected. Mobile radio communications equipment can be expected to experience disruption and failure at EMP threat levels that are likely to be experienced. Moreover, emergency services are critically dependent on the commercial telephone network, on electric power, and thus on fuel for backup generators. Degradation in these capabilities following an EMP attack is likely, as discussed previously, thereby providing another source of cascading infrastructure failure.

RECOMMENDED STRATEGY FOR PROTECTION AND RECOVERY

The Department of Homeland Security must develop a strategy for protection and recovery of emergency services that emphasizes the inclusion of the EMP threat in planning and training and the establishment of technical standards for EMP protection of critical equipment. The Department of Homeland Security, including its Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and state and local governments should augment existing plans and procedures to address both immediate and long-term emergency services response to EMP attack. Plans should include provision for early warning notification, and a protection/recovery protocol based on graceful degradation and rapid recovery that emphasizes a balance between limited hardening and provisioning of spare components, as well as training for their use in emergency reconstitution. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security should provide technical support, guidance, and assistance to state and local governments, as well as to other federal departments and agencies, to ensure the EMP survivability or rapid recovery of critical emergency services networks and equipment.

SPACE SYSTEMS

Over the past few years, there has been increased focus on US space systems in low Earth orbits and their unique vulnerabilities, among which is their susceptibility to nuclear detonations at high altitudes—the same events that produce EMP. It is also important to include, for the protection of a satellite-based system in any orbit, its control system and ground infrastructure, including up-link and down-link facilities.

Commercial satellites support many significant services for the Federal government, including communications, remote sensing, weather forecasting, and imaging. The national security and homeland security communities use commercial satellites for critical activities, including direct and backup communications, emergency response services, and continuity of operations during emergencies. Satellite services are important for national security and emergency preparedness telecommunications because of their ubiquity and separation from other communications infrastructures.

The Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization conducted an assessment of space activities that support US national security interests, and concluded that space systems are vulnerable to a range of attacks due to their political, economic, and military value.
Satellites in low Earth orbit generally are at very considerable risk of severe lifetime degradation or outright failure from collateral radiation effects arising from an EMP attack on ground targets.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense should jointly execute a systematic assessment of the significance of each space system, particularly those in low Earth orbits, to missions such as the continuity of government, strategic military force protection, and the protection of critical tactical force support functions. Information from this assessment and associated cost and risk judgments will inform senior government decision making regarding protection and performance-assurance of these systems, so that missions can be executed with the required degrees of surety in the face of the possible threats.

GOVERNMENT

DHS should give priority to measures to ensure that the President and other senior Federal officials can exercise informed leadership of the Nation in the aftermath of an EMP attack, and to improving post-attack response capabilities at all levels of government.

The President, Secretary of Homeland Security, and other senior officials must be able to manage the national recovery in an informed and reliable manner. Current national capabilities were developed for Cold War scenarios in which it was imperative that the President have assured connectivity to strategic retaliatory forces. While this is still an important requirement, there is a new need for considerably broader, robust connectivity between national leaders, government at all levels, and key organizations within each infrastructure sector so that the status of infrastructures can be assessed in a reliable and comprehensive manner and their recovery and reconstitution intelligently managed. The Department of Homeland Security, working through the Homeland Security Council, should give high priority to identifying and achieving the minimum levels of robust connectivity needed for recovery following EMP attack. In doing this, DHS should give particular emphasis to exercises that evaluate the robustness of the solutions being implemented.

Working with state authorities and private-sector organizations, the Department of Homeland Security should develop draft protocols for implementation by emergency and other government responders following EMP attack, Red Team these extensively, and then institutionalize validated protocols through issuance of standards, training, and exercises.

KEEPING THE CITIZENRY INFORMED

Support to National leadership also involves measures to ensure that the President can communicate effectively with the citizenry. Although the US can improve prevention, protection, and recovery in the face of an EMP attack to levels below those that would have catastrophic consequences for the Nation, an EMP attack would still cause substantial disruption, even under the best of circumstances. Many citizens would be without power, communications and other services for days—or perhaps substantially longer—before full recovery could occur. During that interval, it will be crucial to provide a reliable channel of information to those citizens to let them know what has happened, the current situation, when help of what types for them might be available, what their governments are doing, and the host of questions which, if not answered, are certain to create more instability and suffering for the affected individuals, communities, and the Nation as a whole.

PROTECTION OF MILITARY FORCES

The end of the Cold War relaxed the discipline for achieving EMP survivability within the Department of Defense, and gave rise to the perception that an erosion of EMP survivability of military forces was an acceptable risk. EMP simulation and test facilities have been mothballed or dismantled, and research concerning EMP phenomena, hardening design, testing, and maintenance has been substantially decreased. However, the emerging threat environment, characterized by a wide spectrum of actors that include near-peers, established nuclear powers, rogue nations, sub-national groups, and terrorist organizations that either now have access to nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles or may have such access over the next 15 years have combined to place the risk of EMP attack and adverse consequences on the US to a level that is not acceptable.

Current policy is to continue to provide EMP protection to strategic forces and their controls; however, the end of the Cold War has relaxed the discipline for achieving and maintaining that capability within these forces. The Department of Defense must continue to pursue the strategy for strategic systems to ensure that weapons delivery systems of the New Triad are EMP survivable, and that there is, at a minimum, a survivable “thin-line” of command and control capability to detect threats and direct the delivery systems. The Department of Defense has the capability to do this, and the costs can be within reasonable and practical limits.

The situation for general-purpose forces (GPF) is more complex. The success of these forces depends on the application of a superior force at times and places of our choosing. We accomplish this by using a relatively small force with enormous technological advantages due to superior information flow, advanced warfighting capabilities, and well-orchestrated joint combat operations. Our increasing dependence on advanced electronics systems results in the potential for an increased EMP vulnerability of our technologically advanced forces, and if unaddressed makes EMP employment by an adversary an attractive asymmetric option.

The United States must not permit an EMP attack to defeat its capability to prevail. The Commission believes it is not practical to protect all of the tactical forces of the US and its coalition partners from EMP in a regional conflict. A strategy of replacement and reinforcement will be necessary. However, there is a set of critical capabilities that is essential to tactical regional conflicts that must be available to these reinforcements. This set includes satellite navigation systems, satellite and airborne intelligence and targeting systems, an adequate communications infrastructure, and missile defense.

The current capability to field a tactical force for regional conflict is inadequate in light of this requirement. Even though it has been US policy to create EMP-hardened tactical systems, the strategy for achieving this has been to use the DoD acquisition process. This has provided many equipment components that meet criteria for durability in an EMP environment, but this does not result in confidence that fielded forces, as a system, can reliably withstand EMP attack. Adherence to the equipment acquisition policy also has been spotty, and the huge challenge of organizing and fielding an EMP-durable tactical force has been a disincentive to applying the rigor and discipline needed to do so.

EMP durability should be provided to a selected set of tactical systems such that it will be practical to field tactical forces that cannot be neutralized by an EMP attack. The Department of Defense must perform a capabilities-based assessment of the most significant EMP threats to its tactical capabilities and develop strategies for coping with these threats in a reliable and effective manner.

Overall, little can be accomplished without the sustained attention and support of the leadership of the Department of Defense and Congress. This will require the personal involvement and cooperation among the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Service Chiefs, and the appropriate congressional oversight committees in creating the necessary climate of concern; overseeing the development of strategy; and reaffirming the criticality of survivable and endurable military forces, including command, control, and communications (C3) in updated policy guidance, implementation directives, and instructions. Congressionally mandated annual reports from the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on the status and progress for achieving EMP survivability of our fighting forces will emphasize the importance of the issue and help ensure that the necessary attention and support of the DoD leadership continues.