Last week America was tested and found wanting. Cyber terrorists shut down the Colonial Pipeline system serving a major portion of southeastern states and reportedly collected a $5 million ransom. Some gas stations remain without fuel to sell, motorists still search for gas and wait in long lines just as we did 40-plus years ago after Arab states quadrupled the cost of oil almost overnight.
Regardless of the smirk on the face of the energy secretary who commented that if people drove electric cars this wouldn’t be a problem, the fact remains that fossil fuels provide more than 90 percent of our transportation energy. People were financially harmed and continue to be hammered by escalating energy prices.
This didn’t have to happen, and American corporations and politicians have been warned for years about the vulnerability of our energy/financial systems and every commercial activity reliant upon electricity and the computers that holds our civilization together.
Peter Pry, the executive director of the EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) Task Force and a member of the U.S. National Strategy Forum warned that what happened with the Colonial Pipeline was a test of Biden by the Kremlin. The Kremlin warned Biden some weeks ago when a crisis was developing over the Ukraine (Russia had deployed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border) for the United States to not interfere. Spokespersons for the Russian RT and Sputnik media groups said they could shut down Florida, Washington, or a portion of any city at will.
In the event of a cyber war with America, Russia is much better prepared and more capable of inflicting massive, if not catastrophic damage on America. Pry believes that the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline by the Russian-based terrorist group, “DarkSide” (just three weeks after warning Biden not to interfere in Ukraine/Russian conflict) was a warning and demonstration to Biden of Russian capabilities and intent. Biden is being tested by a resurgent, aggressive Kremlin, along with other bad actors: Iran, North Korea, and especially China. The perception of weakness, indecisiveness and diminishment of American military/industrial power and political commitment will be challenged in the near future, likely within this decade.
Of growing threats to American national security, none is so chilling as the vulnerability of the electrical grid. A cyberattack shutting down the electrical grid for 330 million people would inflict total chaos and breakdown of society. Our grid is aging, vulnerable, and woefully underfunded for maintenance and hardening against external threats. We saw this in California when 100-year old power transmission lines started massive wildfires or when a winter storm in Texas left people in the dark/cold for a week. Those were localized events; a high-altitude EMP burst via ballistic missiles fired from North Korea, Iran, Russia, or China could darken the nation for a year or more. The EMP Task Force estimates that more than 90 percent of the American population would die from starvation or societal breakdown. Every electrical device would shut down, burned out by a massive electromagnetic pulse. Cars wouldn’t start, water pumps, sewer treatment plants, computers, radio/TV would all be down. Everything electrical would be fried. Stores carry about a three-day supply of food; starvation would occur rapidly as there would be no trucks to re-stock food supplies. All emergency services would be out of commission. We’d be on our own; chaos would ensue.
A key component of our electrical transmission system is the massive transformers at power stations/substations. Pry stated it takes 18 months to build a transformer, and they aren’t manufactured in America. With our economy devastated by an EMP/cyberattack, how would we contract/purchase replacements?
A great deal of ink has been used extolling the “existential threat” of climate change, urging rapid conversion to an all-electric economy, foreswearing use of fossil fuels. Left out are unpleasant facts, such as wind/solar systems require the massive use of fossil fuels for their construction, even in their components, such as windmill blades and lubricants or the impracticality of private electric-driven transportation. We don’t have enough power generation capability to support such an economy, and we’re dismantling power facilities without consideration for the future.
We have overseas commitments we can’t ignore, such as defense of Taiwan and South Korea. “Who cares?” says the isolationist? The bulk of the computer microchips that operate the hundred micro-computers in our cars and everything else are from microchip production facilities, and we aren’t building them here. The rare-earth metals used in their manufacture are mostly mined in China and Africa; attempts to mine them here are mired in legal battles. It takes two years to certify a mining operation.
We’re chasing unicorns and pixie dust in our quest to build a perfect world. We’re facing multiple, real existential threats that threatens our survival in this decade, not a hundred years hence, the hyperbole of climate alarmists notwithstanding.
We need to wake up, not “woke” with self-absorbed obsession, but return to the reality of facing a world filled with ravenous wolves that would annihilate our republic, if we don’t do it to ourselves first. Δ
Al Fonzi had a 35-year military career, serving in both the Vietnam and Iraq wars. Respond with a letter to the editor emailed toletters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Pride 2021.
In fact, the pipeline system was not disabled by the hack, only the accounting program. Deliveries were halted to avoid profit loss. Capitalism was tested and found wanting.
MORE OIL, LESS LIBERAL BS! DRILL TILL IT HURTS, THEN DRILL SOME MORE! Hey, NUCLEAR is clean, efficient and safe! Oh yeah…democrats can’t rig elections when oil and nuclear provide the safe, convenient power to light and heat homes that is required. Put 10 million solar panels out in Carriza plains that could power a can opener 1/2 way through a can of tuna. Maybe put up 5 million wind turbines (condor shredders) that pollute the environment in Wyoming when the blades are retired to rust away… BIDEN SUCKS, his dementia just doesn’t know it. Vote Republican in 2022 and forever. The party of Lincoln that ABOLISHED slavery, that cherishes the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution, that (even with tech and media demagoguery, election fraud) still wins FAIR and HONEST elections.
“In the event of a cyber war with America, Russia is much better prepared and more capable of inflicting massive, if not catastrophic damage on America.”
Like much of what Mr. Fonzi says, this is not factually accurate. Just because we don’t unleash malign actors to wreak havoc in the cyberworld, as Russia does, does not mean we are in danger of losing a cyber war with the Russians. According to Harvard’s Kennedy School, the U.S. is the most powerful cyber nation in the world with China coming in a distant second and Russia fourth, behind both China and the U.K.
But, sure, I get it—Biden bad, hell in a hand basket, we’ll all be speaking Russian or Chinese in four years because we didn’t reelect Donald Trump.
Just imagine the indignation of the lefties, who dismiss this threat, if they lost access to social meda! “Life without Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Tic Toc, etc. How can I go on?” . I’ll bet we would see some attempting suicide by sticking their head in the oven, before they eventually realized that their microwave won’t work without electricity.
“Just imagine the indignation of the lefties, who dismiss this threat, if they lost access to social meda! “Life without Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Tic Toc, etc. How can I go on?”
Exactly why most “lefties” favor breaking up these monopolies. Amazon should follow.
Moreover, I don’t believe anyone is dismissing this threat. I simply do not think it rises to the level of paranoia which Mr. Fonzi wants to promote. It was Trump, after all, who, just last year, proposed cutting $150 million from the budget of the nation’s top cybersecurity agency.
It’s also why “lefties” are in favor of Biden’s infrastructure plan which, among other things, will harden our defenses against such threats. Biden understands that this is the moment for America to go big on infrastructure in order to compete on a world stage with China, who has not been shy in the last several years in building up its roads, airports, broad band, etc.
A commission should be established to study the cyber terrorism threat to Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and our community.
@michael Smith: How will breaking up monopolies protect the power grid or the internet? They will collapse because their micro circuits are fried by an EMP or because malware shuts down theirsystem. Neither cause cares about ownership, or is effected by it. Breaking up these companies may be a good idea for other reasons, but won’t do anything for protect our systems.
@John Donegan: I’m saying decentralization is better. There should be several iterations of Facebook or Twitter. Russian hackers would have to pick and choose. They couldn’t simply shut down a billion member site with one stroke.
Anyway, I’m confident that after Biden’s plan gets funded it will solve many of these problems. Unfortunately, for the last 40 years under neo-liberal economics we have neglected our infrastructure. Let’s harden our cyber capabilities, grids, etc. You and Mr. Fonzi can offer doom and gloom, but right now I feel more confident about our nation’s future than ever before.
Let’s thank God we have Biden in office instead of Trump at a time like this. Biden’s popularity continues to far eclipse that of his predecessor.
Even the Republicans who believe the election was rigged are starting to wonder how Trump could’ve been so incompetent to get tripped up by a rigged election despite having all the power and resources of the presidency behind him. They mistakenly thought that if anyone could rig an election in their favor it would be the Trumpster. But he wasn’t even able to cheat his way into second term. This is a guy who’s made his living off of being a liar and a cheater. The majority of voters decided they would rather have a man of character in the office. Vladimir Putin can’t be too happy about that. I’m sure he’d like to kick trumps ass right now as well. And about those tax returns…
How much better off would we, as individuals. be if our needs were met locally instead of being connected to a vast hackable network?
I understand that coal and oil are not available in every locality but that does not prevent communities from generating power locally rather than via “the grid” [what is that anyway?]. The ‘Not In My Town’ opposition to local power companies puts your town at risk of power and other shutdowns as well as not providing jobs for local residents.
How about a little local self-sufficiency?
The technology for mini nuclear power generators with no storage problems for neighborhoods exists but is ignored while fossil fuels continue to power plants building solar panels and windmills. Why no support for technology that will not use the ”evil’ fossil fuels at all?
It is up to us, as residents and taxpayers, to ask that our cites and county become self sufficient so our water, power and health care systems are not subject to cyber attack.
As for me, I’ll be paying closer attention to how to deal with shutdowns and joining the ‘prepared’ just in case.
Mr. Al Fonzi,
Thank you for your well written piece detailing the numerous failures of this whacky liberal president who snuck into office.
I think we all know that Joe Biden is an empty suit, and America’s enemies are licking their lips as they take advantage of Biden’s ineptitude.
As we see here, many liberal trolls are out in force trying to create a smokescreen around Biden’s many failed policies and bundled diplomacy, but we should have known it would be like this.
Will America ever learn?