wab (04/18/83)
I saw an article in the Sunday paper describing the latest in "humanitarian" nuclear weapons. It was described as an Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb or EMP device. It is essentially an improved neutron bomb, designed to enhance the electromagnetic crap that an A-bomb produces. What such a bomb would do is to fry any semiconductor within range. This would supposedly kill no people, just electronic equipment. Great. While I applaude the misguided impetus to produce "humanitarian" weapons, I must criticize the logic involved. First, the above ground detonation of any nuclear device would release a great deal of radioactive material into the atmosphere. While such an explosion would be minor compared to the devastation of a 50 megaton bomb, it would still mean a prohibitive number of immediate and long range deaths from radiation poisoning. The point of fact is that any offensive use of nuclear weapons would be a major catastrophe and therefore unacceptible. Second, in this article it was suggested that EMP weapons would be excellent for a first strike attack since they could fry the brains of missles while they were still in their silos. It seems unbelievable that any major power would risk having their missles destroyed by leaving them unlaunched in the event of an attack, so any such "humanitarian" first strike would probably result in a massive reply with real H-bombs. Third, supposing there were a safe way to use the EMP bomb in some tactical situation, who would be more vulnerable to its effects? Obviously, the more technically oriented military would suffer since it would depend more on its electronic equipment. Therefore, if we develop the EMP bomb we must keep it a close secret since we are the most vulnerable to its effects. If EMP bombs were lobbed around in an invasion of Europe, for example, the Soviet tanks would roll on relatively unaffected, while all of the fancy laser aiming technology that NATO uses would be trashed. This seems to be an obvious situation in which we are shooting ourselves in the foot. The United States is the most technologically advanced country in the world, so it doesn't make sense to develop an anti-technology bomb, unless we are interested in suicide. I, for one, am not suicidal. Bill Baker !reed!wab