When our leaders discuss major threats to U.S. national security, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack typically gets relegated to the bottom of the list. But should it be? Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz) explained to Circa News that he believes an EMP attack on the U.S. is “the most dangerous short-term national security threat that we face.” Circa News reports on the relative ease of carrying out such an attack:

According to Franks, an electromagnetic pulse attack happens when a small nuclear warhead detonates hundreds of miles over the U.S. sending out an electromagnetic wave that can instantly take out the country’s power grid without mass casualties.

The Blaze reports on what kind of mass causalities we are looking at from such an assault:

The Congressional EMP Commission reported that after such an attack Americans would face starvation, a lack of clean water, disease and eventually societal unrest. The commission estimated that 90 percent of the U.S. population would die within a year — nearly 300 million people.

Even the most primitive nuclear weapons can cause an EMP.  Likewise, even the most poorly-guided missile will work, since it merely needs to loft the bomb to a certain altitude.  Since those weapons don’t have to be at all precise to be effective, solving the EMP threat swiftly should be of the utmost important for U.S. lawmakers. Former CIA Director James Woolsey, Jr. reveals that in order to cause a large disturbance or damage to a state’s electrical infrastructure would only take “…a relatively primitive, older, low-yield nuclear weapon[.]” Woolsey also has mentioned some of the rogue actors the U.S. should be aware of when it comes to EMP: “Russia, North Korea, Iran and China are all working hard on ‘nuclear generated electromagnetic pulse.’” The Washington Times shows an excerpt of the Iranian military book named Passive Defense to get a glimpse into Iran’s reasoning for launching a potential EMP strike:

“As a result of not having the other destructive effects that nuclear weapons possess, among them the loss of human life, weapons derived from electromagnetic pulses have attracted attention with regard to their use in future wars … . The superficiality of secondary damage sustained, as well as the avoidance of human casualties, serves as a motivation to transform this technology into an advanced and useful weapon in modern warfare.”

Speaking about legislation currently going through Congress that would address the threat, Congressman Franks said: “If these bills pass the Senate, then what we do then is harden the grid to the extent that even if we have a pulse that takes the grid down, we can bring it back up.” It’s time for our elected leaders like Congressman Franks to take this EMP threat seriously. Our very lives depend on it.