Security Whip

Of late, I keep reading more articles on the subject of Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons and how devastating they are.  EMP’s for some reason have become something akin to the Boogey Man.  EMP’s are great as story lines in books and movies, but from both a personal and professional stand point EMP’s are at the very bottom of my list of things I need to worry about when it comes to preparing.  Why?  Because it doesn’t pass the common sense test!  Its not that I don’t think they work or anything of that nature, its that the juice ain’t worth the squeeze!

We are talking about one of the most sophisticated weapons on the earth. Saddam Hussein spent hundreds of millions of dollars and years trying to create a nuclear device and couldn’t. Sure, some rogue nation could sell one to a bunch of bad guys, but what do you think the price tag would be for such an item?  And, you wouldn’t want it traced back to you.  Or, one could be stolen, right.  Yep, completely plausible.  On both accounts you have to have someone or a group of people, with specialize knowledge that can set this thing up.  I’m assuming its not as easy as putting the red wire into the red plug and the black wire into the black plug.  Then, we have to drive it to a port and ship this thing to the states by boat.   Of course we will bypass any and all security measures.  Now we are in the states with this thing, so which city do we go for? New York City, the city, which has become the de facto place that represents all things American.   How big is this thing anyways?  To get the most bang for our buck we have to detonate this thing up high, maybe the roof of a building.  Unfortunately, the other buildings would reduce the effects…a plane.  We have to rent a cargo plane and a couple of pilots to fly us over the city and some poor schmuck has to be on board to set it off.  The more you talk through it the less and less plausible it all sounds.

Who knows what the effects would be or if it would even work!  There are so many variables.  It does make for a good story line, but the facts are that the bad guys are constrained by the same things that you and I are, which is money, resources, logistics, personnel, time and so on.  There are much simpler, cheaper and more effective ways to create devastation and havoc than though the use of a complicated EMP.

I understand that some individuals are concerned about nuclear war, if that’s the case then an EMP would be the last of your worries.  So before you go out and spend some money to build a Faraday cage, think about it.

Thanks

Security Guy

Share on Facebook