Blackout Wars

Book excerpt: Blackout Wars is about the historically unprecedented threat to our electronic civilization from its dependence on the electric power grid. Most Americans have experienced temporary blackouts, and regard them as merely an inconvenience. Some Americans have experienced more protracted local and regional blackouts, as in the aftermaths of Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, and may be better able to imagine the consequences of a nationwide blackout lasting months or years, that plunges the entire United States into the dark. In such a nightmare blackout, the entire population of the United States could be at risk. There would be no food. No water. Communications, transportation, industry, business and finance--all of the critical infrastructures that support modern civilization and the lives of the American people would be paralyzed by collapse of the electric power grid. Millions could die. How could a catastrophic blackout happen? Threats to the electric power grid are posed by cyber attack, sabotage, a geomagnetic super-storm, and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from the high-altitude detonation of a nuclear weapon. Blackout Wars warns that terrorists and rogue states are developing a revolutionary new military strategy that could exploit all of these threats in combination, including exploiting the opportunity of severe weather or a geo-storm, to collapse the national electric grid and all the critical infrastructures. It would be the fall of American civilization. For the first time in history, the most dysfunctional societies, like North Korea that cannot even feed its own people, or even non-state actors like terrorists, could destroy the most successful societies on Earth--by means of a Blackout War. Attacking the electric grid enables an adversary to strike at the technological and societal Achilles Heel of U.S. military and economic power. Blackout Wars likens this new Revolution in Military Affairs to Nazi Germany's Blitzkrieg strategy, secretly developed and tested in low-profile experiments during the 1930s, sprung upon the Allies in 1939-1941 in a series of surprise attacks that nearly enabled the Third Reich to win World War II. Just as the West was asleep to the threat from the Blitzkrieg, so today U.S. and Western elites are blind to the looming threat from a Blackout War. Fortunately, where the Federal government is failing to protect the national electric grid, State governments have legal authority and the technical capability to protect their electric grids within their State boundaries, and so spare their citizens from the worst consequences of a protracted blackout. Maine, Virginia, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma Texas, Colorado and other States have initiatives underway to protect their grids and their peoples from the existential threat that is nuclear EMP attack, and from other hazards that could cause a catastrophic blackout. Ominously, this necessary trend toward decentralization of a vital national security responsibility from the Federal government to State governments is eerily reminiscent of the late Roman Empire. When Rome could no longer defend its cities from the barbarians, the cities built walls to defend themselves. Now that Washington cannot or will not defend the United States from nuclear EMP attack, some States are "building walls" to protect their electric grids and peoples from the new barbarians. Blackout Wars is the story of these heroic efforts by individual legislators and citizens to be "Horatio on the Bridge" defending their States and peoples against perhaps the greatest threat that has ever challenged civilization. Most of all, Blackout Wars is a handbook on why and how the States must meet this challenge, and a clarion call to the States to defend themselves.