Why is North Korea's EMP threat is all sizzle and no steak?

Don’t Panic About the North Korea EMP Threat

North Korea’s warning that it could detonate a hydrogen bomb that would allow for a “super-powerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack” set off another round of debate in the U.S. about the danger. Experts recently warned Congress that such an attack would cripple the electrical grid and kill as many as 90 percent of Americans within a year. But such fears are likely overblown, suggests Brian Barrett for Wired.

“North Korea attacking the U.S. with an EMP would be a fantastically high-risk maneuver, with uncertain gains. And even if it did incapacitate much of the U.S. power grid, it wouldn’t prevent a counterstrike,” Barrett writes. “U.S. military equipment is hardened, and its response could come from plenty of places other than North America.”

Such a provocation would also “be out of character for Kim Jong Un, who despite the public bluster has historically known where the boundaries are, and managed not to cross them. His main objective is the survival of his regime; exploding a nuclear weapon above the United States would almost certainly assure its destruction.”

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