EMP could cause a lot of damage , but we have had this sort of damage by accident and survived.
Plane when have we ever had a of nationwide infrastructure/power-grid
failure that lasted a very long time as in months to a year or more
since we have become so dependent on computers?
I included a link.
An EMP event would not be more destructive than a major storm that caused a regional power out.
We have had several regional power failures , in the worst ones the crash of one grid would drag down the neighboring grids in a rolling effect.
Gradually this situation is being improved as better switching is installed.
A single EMP bomb might at worst cut the power in a region, worse than that , several EMP attacks in a short time might knock out several regional grids, but this isn't permanant damage and is a sort of damage we are accustomed to deal with after every severe storm.
An attack of that sort would be expensive and annoying, but would only cause death on people who cannot live a short time without power. It might affect some aircraft in flight and kill the passengers and crew when they lost controll.It would reduce our military strength almost not at all.
But , having NKorea poping atomic bombs in our airspace would require massive retaliation even though it is survivable.
Perhaps EMP is being discussed because someone is trying to imagine a way that NKoreas few availible atomic bombs could win a war with a much larger and tougher country.
We learned on 9-11 that tiny forces can cause us serious hurt, I hope that our enemys have learned since then that when we are seriously hurt we get serious about reducing the threat.
