What would happen if North Korea EMPd USA?

[Themius]

[QUOTE=hirazu;20904225][QUOTE=Themius;20904181]I see someone lacks the ability to think in the abstract and understand how light year = a long ass time, because of the distance covered. We are light years away from xxxx just = we are exponentially far from x objective.

DERP AGAIN!

Well Light year is how long light travels in 1 year! so you basicly say that North Korea on earth is far away in the galaxy am i right?

Light Years have allways and will allways be a measure of distance not time. Even how "ABRTRACT" YOU choose to see it.

It's a fucking idiom... do you not understand idioms or something? You ?as though I created the idiom? Wow, talk about boring people in this thread.

[Elegiac]

It's a fucking idiom... do you not understand idioms or something? You as though I created the idiom? Wow, talk about boring people in this thread.

Truth be told, that idiom annoys me as well when people use it in the temporal sense rather than the spatial sense. -.-

[Themius]

Metaphors are extremely dangerous to use on the Internet, because people take them literally and begin to break them down into itty bitty semantic parts.

We, the users of the Internet, are light years away from figuring out how to interpret old expressions and idioms.

I think there are a few observers in this thread, they simply just don't understand why we humans use such non-literal expressions and idioms.

[Deleted]

But the EMP could be a basic Nuclear bomb that is detonated roughly 60-100km over land, Is the Anti-missile defenses really reaching that high up?

China exploded a weather satellite at 500 KM orbit traveling at 17,000 MPH a few years back. that's 5X as high as the detonation height and 10% faster than a top of the line ICBM, which I doubt NK has. the US also has missile defense posted in Guam and Japan, either of which would take down the missile long before it reaches the US. and I doubt that NK, who hasn't even been confirmed to be able to orbit a satellite, is able to launch a missile the required 6000 KM to reach Alaska, let alone the 13,000 to reach any significant target on the west coast.

Honestly, what i'm more afraid of is a potential nuclear submarine. after the fall of the USSR, there hasn't been much monitoring of Ex-Soviet military hardware. if North Korea could have gotten their hands on a nuclear submarine and refitted it for the launch of taepo dongs or whatever they're called, they could strike anywhere on mainland US and even Europe.

[Auspice]

An EMP large enough to do that would imply they detonated a nuclear weapon. If they did that, there'd be no Pyongyang soon after. They wouldn't, and couldn't anyway. We have Cold War-era protections in place for our nuclear arsenal so they can't disable it. Submarines, nuclear weapons stationed in other countries, and they know if they used a nuclear weapon, they'd get one in return. For all their talk, North Korea is seemingly pretty harmless. They have no power projection except in the form of missiles. They don't have a navy, they don't have foreign bases, they don't have anything to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. except a weapon that would be returned with one several fold stronger if they ever used it against us. It's not something they can ever use tactically, it's suicide.

[Wezmon]

I think there are a few observers in this thread, they simply just don't understand why we humans use such non-literal expressions and idioms.

Add to that we express time as a distance all the time. "i'm sorry boss but we are miles away from being ready" etc. In fact we would rarely use a measurement of time in that way "i'm sorry we are many 1000's of seconds away from being ready"

[Laize]

What would happen if North Korea EMPd USA? I know USA would be left without power and many(if not all) electronically devices would be destroyed and be without power for a long time, Nuclear Reactors would get meltdowns, Life support on hospitals would fail etc. Could North Korea be a threat? For uninformed people read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

I'm not sure you understand what an EMP does in real life. EMPs generate electrical currents in conductors and are only really dangerous (as far as ease of protection) to electronics. EMPs are capable of inducing voltages that exceed electrical breakdown limits and can cause some less rugged systems to short-circuit even through insulators.

Nuclear plants (insofar as their safety) and hospitals aren't really at risk for EMPs to cause major damage (I would hope) due to the ease of protecting sensitive equipment. Hell, you can protect your own house against an EMP if you were willing to surround it in expensive conductive mesh... or several layers of aluminum foil.

The real danger of EMPs (as far as the actual functioning of civilization) comes from the E3 component that can induce electrical currents in existing power lines and overload infrastructure in a 2000 km radius (generous estimate) and propagate through the grid much further than that. The damage would be catastrophic and could take months or even years to get that particular area back online. Last I checked, however, the US was taking steps to ensure the most vulnerable Achilles' Heels we have are being offered protection and protected against Geomagnetic Storms (The E3 component of an EMP is very similar to a geomagnetic storm). Protections against this are relatively simple circuit breakers and fuses.

A few points. The E1 component of an EMP will destroy every piece of electronics equipment hooked up to the power grid. Full stop, no exceptions. Circuit breakers and fuses will not trip in time to save the equipment. If an EMP is expected (Either through geomagnetic storms or an incoming atmospheric nuclear detonation), sensitive equipment will be taken off the grid and placed in protective shielding which will nullify (Or at least heavily retard) the initial pulses. The E3 component does not pose significant damage to electronic equipment (regular surge protectors can protect against that) but poses grave danger to our electrical infrastructure. Strong insulation combined with surge protectors will be extremely inexpensive and can take recovery time from years to months or even weeks.

In short, I'm not worried about EMPs.

[Mihalik]

What would happen if North Korea EMPd USA? I know USA would be left without power and many(if not all) electronically devices would be destroyed and be without power for a long time, Nuclear Reactors would get meltdowns, Life support on hospitals would fail etc. Could North Korea be a threat? For uninformed people read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

They would get nuked.

Satellites and major military installations are shielded. (It is possible) Also many of them have double and triple redundancy systems. Even much of the military hardware is shielded, warships, tanks and such (thank you Cold War). Civilian infrastructure would go down the drain and damages would be in the trillions, but North Korea would turn into the largest reflective surface on the face of the Earth (glass).

Alas you have been watching that horrible crap remake of Red Dawn, haven't ya?

You know that generating non-nuclear weapon grade EM Pulses is impossible thanks to the power requirements right? Only realistic way to EMP something is by detonating a nuke (yes...yes...Call of Duty had it right) at high altitudes. But even then again, most WMD scale military hardware would be there to retaliate.

[Reeve]

China exploded a weather satellite at 500 KM orbit traveling at 17,000 MPH a few years back. that's 5X as high as the detonation height and 10% faster than a top of the line ICBM, which I doubt NK has. the US also has missile defense posted in Guam and Japan, either of which would take down the missile long before it reaches the US. and I doubt that NK, who hasn't even been confirmed to be able to orbit a satellite, is able to launch a missile the required 6000 KM to reach Alaska, let alone the 13,000 to reach any significant target on the west coast.

Taking down a missile where you don't know its flight path ahead of time is a lot harder than taking out a satellite where you know exactly where it will be at what time.

[DEATHETERNAL]

While the North Koreans have the capacity to put a nuke on one of their submarines and potentially strike a port with it, they do not have the capacity to launch a warhead over the US to create a nationwide EMP. If they are ever allowed to reach that point, the entire world has failed.

[Nomial17]

[QUOTE=hirazu;20904225][QUOTE=Themius;20904181]I see someone lacks the ability to think in the abstract and understand how light year = a long ass time, because of the distance covered. We are light years away from xxxx just = we are exponentially far from x objective.

DERP AGAIN!

Well Light year is how long light travels in 1 year! so you basicly say that North Korea on earth is far away in the galaxy am i right?

Light Years have allways and will allways be a measure of distance not time. Even how "ABRTRACT" YOU choose to see it.

DERP

Light years = long distance = very long time to reach

How do some of you not understand idioms? Is thinking about it from another perspective so difficult?

[Auspice]

Taking down a missile where you don't know its flight path ahead of time is a lot harder than taking out a satellite where you know exactly where it will be at what time.

That won't be a problem in a decade if that. The Navy's laser technology seems to be chugging along at a quick pace. There won't be need to shoot a missile to intercept another missile once the laser technology is ready for missile defense. It will see the missile in the air and disable it

[Reeve]

That won't be a problem in a decade if that. The Navy's laser technology seems to be chugging along at a quick pace. There won't be need to shoot a missile to intercept another missile once the laser technology is ready for missile defense. It will see the missile in the air and disable it

I'm not convinced the laser tech will be able to work effectively at those distances with atmospheric distortion, water vapor, etc.

[Altrec]

If NK EMPed the US a group of teenagers would group up and stage attacks while yelling WOLVERINES!
Either that or something similar to the plot line of the game Homeland.

[inboundpaper]

South Korea would roll North Korea in retaliation. Then again, if its a magic universe where North Korea had a emp capable or taking out all of the U.S power grid, there may be no South Korea.

[Laize]

I'm not convinced the laser tech will be able to work effectively at those distances with atmospheric distortion, water vapor, etc.

We have systems that can protect our troop transports from incoming RPG fire by firing bullets at them while they're in-flight. Pretty sure it wouldn't be that big a problem to effectively protect against ICBMs which take tens of minutes (Not seconds) to reach their targets.

[Deletedaccount1]

I doubt any country on Earth could take down the entire US power grid, let alone NK.

[Reeve]

We have systems that can protect our troop transports from incoming RPG fire by firing bullets at them while they're in-flight. Pretty sure it wouldn't be that big a problem to effectively protect against ICBMs which take tens of minutes (Not seconds) to reach their targets.

That's a pretty apples and oranges comparison. First, an ICBM moves a LOT faster than an RPG. Second, the area the ICBM can be in at any given time is many orders of magnitude larger than the RPG round. Finally, you have to catch an ICBM a lot farther away than you can catch and RPG.

[Deleted]

I doubt any country on Earth could take down the entire US power grid, let alone NK.

There are many countries capable of this.

[Verain]

NK lacks the delivery system to do this, but in theory a mass EMP attack could cripple the populace.

What it wouldn't do much to, is the military. It also wouldn't do much to nuclear plants, so don't worry about that. It would essentially be an attack on the infrastructure, and would be an act of war.

It is also not particularly cheaper to EMP an area than level it with explosives. The advantage is there, certainly, but to achieve that kind of coverage would be shocking. In any event, the net effect to such an attack would be an all out war. No ally of the US would sit around and not commit troops. That's what "ally" means, after all. You'd see NK's dynasty get ousted within three weeks to an international force.


NK's government is 100% on the wrong side of history. They are mostly a threat to South Koreans, which is who you should definitely be concerned about. For years, China's friendliness with them made me look at China with a lot of distrust, but with a bellicose Kim Jong at the wheel, China is no longer backing them.

NK government has no friends!