Congress Should Establish EMP Recognition Day
The Heritage Foundation’s Jena Baker McNeill and James Jay Carafano have written a memo titled “Congress Should Establish EMP Recognition Day.”
They posit that the threat of an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack against the U.S. is a credible one. An EMP attack is produced by detonating a nuclear weapon launched by a ballistic missile. The results would damage electrical and information systems, including banking and finance, and food and water. In other words, such an attack would disable systems we need to be a functional society.
If an EMP attack occurred tomorrow, what would happen? McNeill and Carafano contend that transportation would come to a halt, food delivery would cease, and traffic lights would go dark. Blackberries addicts would suffer withdrawal, and GPS would not work.
The memo provides a brief history of President Ronald Reagan’s speech on March 23, 1983, in which he proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a plan that focused on building and implementing missile defense systems. McNeill and Carafano call on Congress to recognize the threat of an EMP attack and to designate March 23, the anniversary of Reagan’s speech, as EMP Recognition Day. Such an action would raise awareness and possibly prompt Congress to appropriate funds for research and development.
Read the full memo for more information.
Tags: EMP, James Carafano, Jena Baker McNeill