Cyber and EMP Preparedness

CYBER AND EMP PREPAREDNESS

The Honorable Anne Neuberger

Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology

Dear Deputy National Security Advisor Neuberger,

Congratulations on your appointment as the President’s White House “Cybersecurity Czar.”

Condolences that your appointment coincides with a looming existential threat to our nation from Cyber Warfare.  Russia's cyber-attack on the Colonial Pipeline that provides 45% of petroleum needed by the eastern U.S. for civilian and military use, preceded by Russia's unprecedented SolarWinds cyber-attack on hundreds of federal departments and agencies, and thousands of industries and utilities, highlights U.S. vulnerability.

Just a few weeks ago, amidst concerns that Russia might invade Ukraine, Russia’s state-owned media warned that a Russia-U.S. Cyber War targeting critical infrastructures is “inevitable.”  Russia threatens it can win a Cyber War decisively by attacking the U.S. electric grid. Russian TV described cyber-attack options ranging from small-scale to existential threats, including blacking-out part of New York City (Harlem was mentioned), or blacking-out the state of Florida, or blacking-out the entire continental United States.[i]

Now Colonial Pipeline has been hacked, shut down temporarily.  Cyber-attacks can destroy pipelines, causing them to explode.  Colonial Pipeline is crucial to fueling U.S. military power projection capabilities from the east coast to protect NATO or to help Ukraine during a Russian invasion.[ii]  That is why the Colonial Pipeline was really targeted, not for the millions paid in ransom, but as a demonstration of Russia’s cyber-power.   

For 20 years or more, at least since President George W. Bush established the Department of Homeland Security, protecting U.S. electric grids and other critical infrastructures has been a high priority of the federal government.  Yet little has been accomplished.  When the Texas electric grid fails catastrophically in an ice storm, when the California grid causes wildfires and rolling blackouts because it cannot cope with high winds, citizens and adversaries alike can see that U.S. utilities, negligent of simple precautions, cannot be trusted to prepare for sophisticated threats like Cyber Warfare and EMP.  Not even the Colonial Pipeline is safe.

Our grand strategy for protecting critical infrastructures through “public-private partnerships” has failed because the U.S. Government has been content to be the junior partner.  The private sector business culture is not a national security culture, nor do they have the technical competence, nor do they want responsibility for national security.  National security is the constitutional, practical, and ultimate responsibility of the U.S. Government.

The Colonial Pipeline and SolarWinds cyber-attacks are an opportunity for the White House to adopt a new grand strategy where the U.S. Government assumes its natural, dominant role, now of necessity much more muscular and assertive, in protecting critical infrastructures vital to national security.   

The Congressional EMP Commission in 2017 recommended a White House “EMP Czar” to lead the functional equivalent of a Manhattan Project to quickly protect the nation from existential threats posed by solar and manmade electromagnetic pulse (EMP).  The new White House “Cybersecurity Czar” should also serve as an “EMP Czar” since EMP attack is part of adversary planning for Cyber Warfare:

“Combined-arms cyber warfare, as described in the military doctrines of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, may use combinations of cyber-, sabotage-, and ultimately nuclear EMP-attack to impair the United States quickly and decisively by blacking-out large portions of its electric grid and other critical infrastructures…The synergism of such combined arms is described in the military doctrines of all these potential adversaries as the greatest revolution in military affairs in history—one which projects rendering obsolete many, if not all, traditional instruments of military power.”--EMP Commission[iii]

 Protecting from Cyber-attack and EMP, the national electric power grid must have the highest priority.  Electric power is the keystone critical infrastructure that energizes operations of communications, transportation, industry, finance, food, water and all other life-sustaining critical infrastructures.  Threats to the national electric grid from EMP and Cyber Warfare are more imminent than climate change and imperil the existence of modern electronic civilization:

“A long-term outage owing to EMP could disable most critical supply chains, leaving the U.S. population living in conditions similar to centuries past, prior to the advent of electric power.  In the 1800s, the U.S. population was less than 60 million, and those people had many skills and assets necessary for survival without today’s infrastructure.  An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people through the effects of societal collapse, disease, and starvation.”—EMP Commission[iv]    

Natural EMP from a solar superstorm, like the recurrence of the 1859 Carrington Event, is inevitable and could collapse electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures worldwide, putting at risk the lives of billions.  NASA estimates the likelihood of another Carrington Event is 12% per decade.[v]

Fortunately, the existential threats from Cyber Warfare and EMP both have some common solutions that can be part of an “all hazards” strategy for protecting electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures. 

The White House should immediately undertake the steps and strategies outlined below, some of which can advance national Cyber and EMP preparedness at virtually no cost to the U.S. Government, and all at relatively low cost relative to the magnitude of the threats:

“Energy Security For Military Bases And Critical Defense Industries.  Whereas 99 percent of the electricity used by CONUS military bases is supplied by the national electric grid; whereas the Department of Defense (DOD) has testified to Congress that DOD cannot project power overseas or perform its homeland security mission without electric power from the national grid; whereas the Congressional EMP Commission warned that up to 9 of 10 Americans could die from starvation and societal collapse from a nationwide blackout lasting one year; therefore the Secretary of Defense is directed to urge governors, state legislators, public utility commissions of the 50 states, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and the utilities that supply electricity to CONUS military bases and critical defense industries, to protect the electric grid from Cyber Warfare, including  a high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, from natural EMP generated by a solar super-storm and from other Cyber-EMP threats including radiofrequency weapons, and to help the States, NERC, public utilities commissions, and electric utilities by providing DOD expertise and other such support and resources as may be necessary to protect the national electric grid. The Secretary of Defense is authorized to spend up to $4 billion in FY2022 and every year thereafter to help protect the national electric grid.”   

Send a letter from the President and Secretary of Homeland Security to the 50 State Governors and 100 biggest electric utilities spotlighting Cyber/EMP as highest-priority threats.  The letter should urge action to protect electric grids, and alone might even be sufficient to motivate States and utilities to protect their electric grids without Federal intervention.  For the U.S. Government, this could be the easiest and most cost-effective strategy:

National manufacturing standards for equipment critical to electric grids, like transformers and SCADAs, should require such equipment to be designed and manufactured hardened against EMP and Cyber:

CIPA requires the Department of Homeland Security to partner with utilities and the States in pilot projects demonstrating that electric grids and other critical infrastructures can be protected cost-effectively:

If the nation’s 100 nuclear power reactors are protected from Cyber/EMP, it would eliminate the threat that they might "go Fukushima," and they would become instead “islands of survivability” for quickly recovering the national grid:

In the long-term, the United States needs a revolution in the way electricity is generated and distributed, moving toward greatly increased generating power and more decentralized distribution, to meet the energy demands of an increasingly electrified civilization while better protecting that civilization from a solar or manmade "blackout apocalypse."[xvi]  

The “big grid” that provides electric power to the United States is inherently vulnerable to Cyber/EMP because of its size and antiquity.  Constructed haphazardly over the course of more than a century, the national power grid was never designed with national security in mind.  Nor has electrical power generation kept pace with increasing demand, so the grid always operates on the verge of failure, another major factor in its vulnerability.

New technologies for generating electrical power and decentralizing distribution can supplement, and perhaps someday replace, the “big grid” to meet a future where nearly everything, including automobiles, may be electrically powered.  Solar and wind generation are the focus of most political and financial support for a “green energy revolution” despite their significant technological limitations, costly inefficiency, and unreliability.  Examples of some better alternatives include:

The Biden Administration can make practical a “green energy revolution” through Small Modular Reactors and other innovations, and thereby kill with one stone three existential threats: Cyber Warfare, EMP, and Climate Change.  

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, was Chief of Staff of the Congressional EMP Commission, and served on the staffs of the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission, the House Armed Services Committee, and the CIA.  He is author of the books Will America Be Protected? and The Power And The Light (Amazon.com).     

[i] “Russia: ‘War Is Inevitable…Cyberwar’” Newsmax (April 19, 2021).  “The Coming Electronic Apocalypse” Morning Nuke (May 15, 2021).  “These Three Seemingly Unrelated Stories Prove ‘Someone’ Is Preparing For World War III” ANP (May 14, 2021).

[ii] “When Will America Protect Itself Against EMP, Cyber and Ransomware Attacks?” The Hill (May 21, 2021).

[iii] EMP Commission, Assessing the Threat from EMP Attack (July 2017) p. 5.  See also: General Vladimir Slipchenko, Non-Contact Wars (Moscow: 2000); Shen Weiguang, World War, the Third World War—Total Information Warfare; Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Passive Defense: Approach to the Threat Center (Tehran: Martyr Lt. General Sayad Shirazi Center for Education and Research, 2010).

[iv] Ibid, p. 4.

[v] Dr. Tony Phillips, “Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012” Science@NASA (July 23, 2014).

[vi] EMP Commission, Critical National Infrastructures (2008).

[vii] EMP Commission, Chairman’s Report (July 2017) pp. 39-42.

[viii] EMP Commission, Critical National Infrastructures (2008) pp. 60-61.

[ix] All the unclassified EMP Commission reports are located at www.firstempcommission.org.  DHS and CISA, Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Protection and Resilience Guidelines for Critical Infrastructure Equipment (National Cybersecurity Integration Center: February 5, 2019) www.cisa.gov.  Department of Energy, “Physical Characteristics of HEMP Waveform Benchmarks for Use in Assessing Susceptibilities of the Power Grid, Electrical Infrastructures, and Other Critical Infrastructure to HEMP Insults” (January 11, 2021) see also Dr. Peter Vincent Pry Will America Be Protected? Volumes I and II (EMP Task Force: March 2021) pp. 153-161.  Eric Easton, “EMP Mitigation for Electric Substations” Briefing (CenterPoint Energy: November 11, 2020) see also Will America Be Protected? pp. 171-225.      

[x] For scenarios, see EMP Commission, Nuclear EMP Attack Scenarios and Combined-Arms Cyber Warfare (July 2017).

[xi] The Royal Academy of Science, in the 18^th century, offered an award for a clock that could operate accurately at sea to determine longitude, resulting in the invention of the chronometer.

[xii] “Standards” www.ieee.org.

[xiii] “National Electrical Code” www.cpsc.gov.

[xiv] Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, Blackout Wars: State Initiatives to Achieve Preparedness Against an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Catastrophe (EMP Task Force: 2012).

[xv] Ambassador Henry Cooper, “Lake Wylie Pilot Study: Marking Time!” High Frontier (October 5, 2020);  “Lake Wylie Pilot Study Video” High Frontier (December 8, 2020); “Lake Wylie Study Status” (June 19, 2020).

[xvi] See my books Will America Be Protected? (2021), The Power And The Light (2020), EMP Manhattan Project (2018), Apocalypse Unknown (2013), and Blackout Wars (2012) available from Amazon.com.

[xvii] MicroNuclear LLC “Nuclear Reactor Testing Device Opens Doors To Safe Energy In Idaho, Nation” https://www.uidaho.edu/news/news-articles/news-releases/2020-fall/111920-msnb.

[xviii] EMP Commission, Chairman’s Report (July 2017) pp. 39-42. NERC is the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, essentially a lobby for the electric power industry and a major impediment to national EMP/Cyber preparedness.

[xix] U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “National Inventory of Dams” (2018) https://nid.sec.usace.army.mil/ords/f?p=105:113:3839158335878::NO:::  Department of Energy, “Types of Hydropower Plants” www.energy.gov. 

[xx] John Hull, Eagleaf Enterprises [email protected].  For another innovation, wireless transmission of electricity from remote dams to the power grid, see www.emrod.energy.