pyotr filipivich wrote:


Can a country which is highly dependent on a technical
infrastructure which is in turn dependent on a rather fragile
electrical grid survive an EMP attack?
And can it retaliate against a country which essentially has no
such comparable infrastructure?

How do you bomb back to the stone age, a society which for most
intents is already there?
Pyong Yang is NOT stone age, and it seems the rulers there are fine if the
rest of the country IS.

If the US did a major counterstrike on Pyong Yang, it would not be stone
age, it would be totally wiped out.

As for our ability to deliver such a counterstike after an EMP attach, I
think the US has worked REALLY hard to make sure that they could do so.
Certainly, the Trident subs would not be affected, and supposedly they have
standing orders to retaliate if they can determine that the US has been
nuked. The Minuteman missiles and their launch control centers are
underground, so even if their wire-line command network is popped, they
should still be operable. Maybe they don't even use the wire-line stuff
anymore. They have satellite, HF and VLF backup communications. Plus, the
one last scheme is a Minuteman missile with a tape recorder and a VHF
transmitter that can be launched vertically over North Dakota. It can be
fed an Emergency Action Notification from a number of sources including the
"TACAMO" aircraft, and then will broadcast that message to the launch crews
for several hours before falling back to earth.

So, I think an EMP would not take out the command authority to launch a
counterstrike. Now, the REST of the country would be in a MESS! But, these
scenarios of absolutely nothing more sophisticated than a donkey cart being
functional are, I think, way over the top. Certainly, anything with big
antennas or long wires (broadcast stations and the power grid) are going to
go out, and need some level of repair. But, I suspect a lot of cars may
survive, at least partially, and a lot of infrastructure, like trucks and
trains will survive to some extent. (Yes, the entire train signalling
system will be shot, but I think the locomotives will be running or be able
to be gotten running within a couple days.)

Jon