RMA AT: Reps K’s?
Adversarial depictions are critical to RMA
Neary 8—Michael Neary, second-year MA candidate in the International Politics program of the School of International Service, Fall 2008, “Space: The Next Revolution in Military Affairs?” pg 102-123
Perhaps most importantly, for space weaponry to engender a new military revolution, these systems must be developed and deployed with a clear adversary in mind. As discussed above, it has been difficult to effectively implement a new RMA without considering a specific challenger to one’s national interests. 73 American military planners would have to consider which state or non-state actors would be vulnerable to the capabilities provided by the deployment of space-based weapons systems. At present, a well-defined adversary is not outlined in the space policy of the U.S. This could be very well due to the lack of space-based weapons systems, the functional development of which would create the strategic environment in which an adversary could be more clearly defined. As with changes in military doctrine in regards to the uses of outer space, the future may witness the clarification of what constitutes a threat to U.S. security vis-à-vis outer space as the technology develops and becomes practical enough for everyday use.
***EMP Impact Extns***
The power outage resulting from an EMP attack shuts down the financial sector, bringing the economy to an instant stop
Graham and Frankel et. Al 8 - Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, and Dr. Michael J. Frankel, Executive Director of the EMP Commission and one of the Nation’s leading experts on the effects of nuclear weapons, April 2008, “Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack,” The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from an EMP Attack, http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
Despite the robustness of U.S. financial infrastructures against a wide range of threats, they were not designed to withstand an EMP attack. Indeed, the highly sophisticated electronic technologies that make the modern U.S. financial infrastructure possible are the components most vulnerable to EMP. An EMP attack that disrupts the financial services industry would, in effect, stop the operation of the U.S. economy. Business transactions that create wealth and jobs could not be performed. Loans for corporate capitalization and for private purposes, such as buying homes and automobiles could not be made. Wealth, recorded electronically in bank databases, could become inaccessible overnight. Credit, debit, and ATM cards would be useless. Even reversion to a cash economy might be difficult in the absence of electronic records that are the basis of cash withdrawals from banks. Most people keep their wealth in banks and have little cash on hand at home. The alternative to a disrupted electronic economy may not be reversion to a 19th century cash economy, but reversion to an earlier economy based on barter.
An EMP attack would devastate electronics which would be disastrous for the country in multiple areas
Graham and Frankel et. Al 8 - Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, and Dr. Michael J. Frankel, Executive Director of the EMP Commission and one of the Nation’s leading experts on the effects of nuclear weapons, April 2008, “Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack,” The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from an EMP Attack, http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
The electromagnetic pulse generated by a high altitude nuclear explosion is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. The increasingly pervasive use of electronics of all forms represents the greatest source of vulnerability to attack by EMP. Electronics are used to control, communicate, compute, store, manage, and implement nearly every aspect of United States (U.S.) civilian systems. When a nuclear explosion occurs at high altitude, the EMP signal it produces will cover the wide geographic region within the line of sight of the detonation.1 This broad band, high amplitude EMP, when coupled into sensitive electronics, has the capability to produce widespread and long lasting disruption and damage to the critical infrastructures that underpin the fabric of U.S. society. Because of the ubiquitous dependence of U.S. society on the electrical power system, its vulnerability to an EMP attack, coupled with the EMP’s particular damage mechanisms, creates the possibility of long-term, catastrophic consequences. The implicit invitation to take advantage of this vulnerability, when coupled with increasing proliferation of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, is a serious concern. A single EMP attack may seriously degrade or shut down a large part of the electric power grid in the geographic area of EMP exposure effectively instantaneously. There is also a possibility of functional collapse of grids beyond the exposed area, as electrical effects propagate from one region to another
Serious threat of EMP- can and must be addressed
Foster et al 4 – Dr. John S. Foster Jr, chairman of the Board of Pilkington Aerospace, Inc. and Chairman of Technology Strategies and Alliances, Earl Gjelde, served as President George Herbert Walker Bush’s Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the US Department of the Interior, Dr. William R. Graham, NASA Deputy Administrator, Dr. Robert J. Hermann, Chairman of the Board 1998-00
American National Standards Institute, Vice President for Corporate Development at SAIC, GEN Richard L. Lawson, USAF (Ret.), Dr. Gordon K. Soper employed by Defense Group Inc, Dr. Lowell L. Wood, Jr., a scientist-technologist who has contributed to technical aspects of national defense, “Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack,” Volume 1: Executive Report 2004, http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf
Several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication. EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. EMP will cover the wide geographic region within line of sight to the nuclear weapon. It has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures and thus to the very fabric of US society, as well as to the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power. The common element that can produce such an impact from EMP is primarily electronics, so pervasive in all aspects of our society and military, coupled through critical infrastructures. Our vulnerability is increasing daily as our use of and dependence on electronics continues to grow. The impact of EMP is asymmetric in relation to potential protagonists who are not as dependent on modern electronics. The current vulnerability of our critical infrastructures can both invite and reward attack if not corrected. Correction is feasible and well within the Nation's means and resources to accomplish.
EMP destroys key infrastructure and decimates space capabilities
Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis 9 – Chaired by Dr. Robert L Pfaltzgraffi Jr., Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security Studies, and Dr. William R. Van Cleave Professor Emeritus at Department of Defense and Strategic Studies Missouri State University, 2009, “Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the Twenty-First Century” Independent Working Group, online: www.ifpa.org/pdf/IWG2009.pdf
The EMP Threat According to the 2004 report of the EMP Commission, 85 the United States faces a threat from EMP that could have catastrophic consequences based on even a single nuclear warhead. EMP is generated by any nuclear weapon burst at any altitude above a few dozen kilometers, with the height of burst being significant in determining the area exposed to EMP. The EMP threat arises from the ability, whether by terrorists or states, to launch relatively unsophisticated missiles with nuclear warheads to detonate at altitudes from 40 to 400 kilometers above the earth's surface. The rationale for such action would be the high political-military payoff in the form of devastating consequences. An EMP attack would constitute a highly successful asymmetric strategy against a society as heavily dependent as the United States is on electronics, energy, telecommunications networks, transportation systems, the movement of inventories in its manufacturing sector, and food processing and distribution capabilities. As noted in the EMP Commission report, EMP was an unintended result of a nuclear detonation at an altitude of about 400 kilometers during the Starfish nuclear weapons tests above Johnstone Island in the Central Pacific in 1962. The effects, felt some 1400 kilometers away in Hawaii, included "the failure of street lighting systems, tripping of circuit breakers, triggering of burglar alarms, and damage to a telecommunications relay facility." Nuclear tests conducted by the Soviet Union, also in 1962, produced damage to overhead and underground buried cables at distances as far away as 600 kilometers, together with surge arrester burnout, spark-gap breakdown, blown fuses, and power-supply breakdown.8'' The destruction and mayhem caused by an EMP explosion would be far more substantial today given the ubiquity of electronics and society's increased reliance on them to run critical infrastructures. Several potential enemies either already have, or could soon acquire, the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear explosion EMP that would cover a wide geographic region. Such a weapon need not be detonated directly over the United States itself to produce major damage to America's critical infrastructures such as telecommunications, banking and finance, fuel/energy, transportation, food and water supply, emergency services, government activities, and space systems. U.S. satellites, both civilian and military are vulnerable to a range of attacks that include EMP, especially in low-earth orbits. Again, as the EMP Commission concluded, "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."87 Such satellites could be disabled by collateral radiation effects from an EMP attack on ground targets. Thus it is obvious that an interdependence exists between the objects of a potential EMP attack. Disabling one of the infrastructures, such as telecommunications or electricity, would have severe consequences for others, with cascading effects from which an advanced, technologically dependent society such as the United States might not easily recover. An EMP attack mounted against the United States would have far broader international consequences, given the interdependence of America and other economies in an era of globalization. An EMP attack against other economies, such as Japan or a European nation, would have major effects in the United States, and on other countries if the attack was on the United States. The services that would be essential to cope with the consequences of a terrorist attack, such as hospitals and emergency services, themselves might be disabled and therefore would not be available when and where they were most needed. As Senator John Kyi has pointed out. "A terrorist organization might have trouble putting a nuclear warhead on target' with a Scud, but it would be much easier to simply launch and detonate in the atmosphere. No need for the risk and difficulty trying to smuggle a nuclear weapon over the border or hit a particular city. Just launch a cheap missile from a freighter in international waters -al-Qaeda is believed to own about eighty such vessels - and make sure to get it a few miles in the air."88
Financial infrastructure would not be able to weather an EMP, they pose a unique risk
Graham and Frankel et. Al 8 - Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, and Dr. Michael J. Frankel, Executive Director of the EMP Commission and one of the Nation’s leading experts on the effects of nuclear weapons, April 2008, “Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack,” The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from an EMP Attack, http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
An EMP attack would pose the very kind of simultaneous and widespread threat postulated by the NAS that would be fatal to the financial infrastructure but judged by them to be too difficult to execute and implausible for cyberterrorists. EMP effects propagate at the speed of light and would cover a broad geographic area. Such an attack potentially could achieve the NAS criteria for financial infrastructure catastrophe: “simultaneous destruction of all data backups and backup facilities in all locations.”34An EMP would probably not erase data stored on magnetic tape. However, by shutting down power grids and damaging or disrupting data retrieval systems, EMP could deny access to essential records stored on tapes and compact discs (CD). Moreover, because EMP physically destroys electronic systems, it is also in the category of threats that NSTAC concludes are more worrisome than cyberterrorism: “Physical attacks remain the larger risk for the industry.” The vast majority of electronic systems supporting the financial infrastructure have never been tested, let alone hardened, against EMP. Yet the enormous volume, speed, and accuracy required of the electronic infrastructure supporting the financial services industry u. Financial operations could not tolerate the kind of disruptions or mass systemic destruction likely to follow an EMP attack.
Power outages resulting from an EMP guarantee a total shut down of the financial system, causing staggering economic losses
Graham and Frankel et. Al 8 - Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, and Dr. Michael J. Frankel, Executive Director of the EMP Commission and one of the Nation’s leading experts on the effects of nuclear weapons, April 2008, “Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack,” The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from an EMP Attack, http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
These observations suggest that, if an EMP attack were to disrupt the financial industry for days, weeks, or months rather than hours, the economic impact would be catastrophic. The prolonged blackout resulting from Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 is a far better example than the Northeast blackout of 2003 of the challenge that would be posed to the financial infrastructure from EMP. The Katrina blackout, comparable to a small EMP attack, disrupted normal business life for months and resulted in a staggering economic loss that is still an enormous drain on the national economy. The financial network is highly dependent on power and telecommunications for normal operations. Widespread power outages would shut down the network, and all financial activity would cease until power was restored, as happened during Hurricane Katrina. Even if power were unaffected or restored in short order, full telecommunications are required to fully enable the financial network.
Even after power is restored, economic shock creates fear which makes the recovery process much longer
Graham and Frankel et. Al 8 - Dr. William R. Graham, Chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, and Dr. Michael J. Frankel, Executive Director of the EMP Commission and one of the Nation’s leading experts on the effects of nuclear weapons, April 2008, “Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack,” The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from an EMP Attack, http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
In the aftermath of an EMP attack, individuals and corporations would have many sound reasons for being cautious, risk averse, and unwilling to resume business as usual. Once power, telecommunications, and transportation are restored, even if restored promptly, within a matter of days, psychological concerns that affect economic revitalization may linger. Full recovery will require restoring the trust and confidence of the business community in the infrastructures, in financial institutions, and in the future. The Great Depression outlasted its proximate causes by many years, despite strenuous efforts by the Federal Government to implement financial reforms and jump-start the economy, in part because businesses were unwilling to risk their capital in a system that had lost their confidence.
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