Saturday, October 30, 2010

A very scary Halloween, on Midrats

When you mention the possibility of an Electro Magnetic Pulse attack (EMP) - people have a reaction of, "What?" - either that or they get all fidgety or roll their eyes. Is the EMP threat trick or treat?

Join my co-host and EagleOne and me this Sunday, Halloween, from 5-6pm EST to discuss the issue with our guests Jason Sigger and James Carafano.

Our first guest will be Jason Sigger, a defense analyst in the Washington DC area. He was formerly an Army chemical officer before becoming a consultant in the mid-1990s. His specialty is chemical and biological defense issues. He runs a blog called the Armchair Generalist that discusses military issues from a progressive point of view.

For the second half of the hour, James Carafano, Ph.D., Deputy Director, The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Of his many works, Carafano's most recent book is Private Sector, Public Wars: Contractors in Combat - Afghanistan, Iraq, and Future Conflicts (Praeger, 2008), a rigorous study of contractors' role on the battlefield and their impact on military effectiveness and civil society.

Carafano's current book project is a history of the modern military. He is editing a new book series, The Changing Face of War, which examines how emerging political, social, economic and cultural trends will affect the nature of armed conflict.

Carafano joined Heritage as a senior research fellow in 2003. He had been a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington policy institute dedicated to defense issues.

In his Army career, Carafano rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served in Europe, Korea and the United States. His assignments included head speechwriter for the Army Chief of Staff, the service's highest-ranking officer. Before retiring, Carafano was executive editor of Joint Force Quarterly, the Defense Department's premiere professional military journal.

Join us live if you can, and pile in with the usual suspects in the chat room during the show where you can offer your own questions and observations to our guests. If you miss the show or want to catch up on the shows you missed - you can always reach the archives at blogtalkradio - or set yourself to get the podcast on iTunes.

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5 comments:

RhodeIslander said...

By the ENTRACO SEAFROST web site itself  (3rd link above)  the AEGIS mandated EMP protection model of flex conduit will deteriorate at 1.4 dB per year.

So after only 1 decade in the Fleet,  the AEGIS DDG EMP protection will drop from a high of 59 dB  (and 60 is the minimum !)  all the way down to a possible high of only 45 dB of protection.

That is orders of magnitude below the required AEGIS spec of 60 dB minimum EMP attenuation protection.   

CATCH 22.     Maybe we need more Beltway bandits ?  Not !

ewok40k said...

at least armed forces do have some EMP protection, think all the hospitals, power plants, cars, railroad installations, you name it...
anonymous freighter 300 klicks off US coast, single nuke - tipped scud clone, and, as Ripley put it, you can say goodbye to all that...

Salty Gator said...

ewok, without going classified, I believe you overstate that level of protection. In fact, I know you do.

Salty Gator said...

FACT:  THE OPNAV INSTRUCTION FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED FROM 1987.  THERE IS NO OWNER OF THIS DOCUMENT (it was OP-03, but that organization went away in the early 1990s).  An effort was made to update said document, but nobody would do it because hardening your ships to those standards requires a lot of $$.  So, even though there is a tech warrant holder (Dahlgren), the organization that can provide relief from the requirement is OPNAV.  Therefore, your tech warrant holder only has the authority to certify ships that are "required" to meet that standard...

Salty Gator said...

very interesting indeed.  I caution you:  the requirements documents are owned by OPNAV--the CDDs, ORDs, CPDs.  Nobody cares about NAVSEA regulations...they only are envoked if you, your your requirements documents, state that certain requirements such as EMP protection have to be present.  No requirement, no tech warrant holder.  And irregardless, no OPNAV sponsor = no feet to be held to the fire.