With the current situation with North Korea, and their threats of using nuclear power, I began to do a little bit of research into nuclear detonation. I ran across a lesser known (at least I haven't read about it in any news articles, or mentioned by any sort of media thus far....) nuclear weapon known as Electromagnetic Pulse, (EMP).
EMP is actually the result of a nuclear explosion at high-altitudes, above the earth's atmosphere. The higher the magnetic field is under the area of the explosion, the more wide-spread the damage. An E1 wave of such an explosion above the atmosphere would wipe out every electronic dependent device in the affected area. The electrons released into the atmosphere would ensure an electro-magnetic field that would last months, if not years.
EMP has evidently been known to exist since the Cold War, and even studied a bit, but the result of an EMP have only recently become a concern for the US government, because of our country's wide-reliance on electonics of every kind, which would be rendered completely useless, in the event of a nuclear EMP attack.
Because the United States has an extremely high magnetic field, a well-aimed, high altitude nuclear explosion, would affect literally the entire United States. As stated by the Federation of American Scientists, "A large device detonated at 400–500 km (250 to 312 miles) over Kansas would affect all of the continental U.S."
The Immediate Effect:
So let's consider this for a minute. Such an attack would result not only in the entire United States, from California, to New York, losing power, but nearly every device we are so dependent on today would become useless. Not only would we lose our home telephones, we would lose our cellphones and music players. Not only would we lose our personal computers, we would lose every device dependant on computers, such as our modern cars, and airplanes. Large back-up generators for hospitals, prisons, nursing homes, etc. that were powered by electricity off-site would be lost. In a moment, we would be transported back to the 1800's when we were dependant upon steam-engine trains, and our cattle, and produce farms.
Our modern American society is so dependant on our vehicles, not simply for transportation of ourselves, but of our food, our medicines, our clothes. No longer would daily deliveries of food be made, and a rising panic would ensure that every supper-market across the country would be picked clean in a matter of days. What little medicines the local pharmacies would have on hand would become more important than gold, for those with terminal illnesses, both physical and mental, and would likely be gone in a matter of days as well. Survival would boil down to what you had on hand, or could get in those first few days.
Those in nursing homes or hospices, especially those with electronic pace-makers, on oxygen, IV or other forms of electronic medical devices would likely die within days, a slow, torturous death. Prisoners would likely escape relatively easily, as most prisons are locked down by computers, and guarded with electronic alarms. Human guards would be overrun by those fighting to get out, once the realization hit that the prisoners that only thing that stood between them and freedom was a couple of outnumbered men with guns.
All communications would be cut off. If you lived in a small community or town that was miles away from other areas, you would be completely in the dark as to what was happening, or any guidance as to what to do, or where to go. People with family in other cities, or states, would have no way of contacting their loved ones. We would have no reassurances from our government, no updates on the situation from CNN of FOX, no daily newspaper with information hot off the wire. Each town and city would ultimately be on their own in terms of managing their people.
The Extended Effect:
Martial law would likely be enacted over-all. While some communities would manage this with dignity and attempt to stay true to American ideals, others might begin to let that power go to their head, harshly punishing, or even executing whomever they wished for whatever, or no, reason.
Travel would be limited to what you could do on foot, or on a bicycle. Guns would likely become commonplace, and ammunition worth more than money.
Depending on the size of community, and their ability to feed their citizens, after a matter of weeks, or, (if you were lucky,) months, people would begin to run out of food. Those on the east coast that have a higher ratio of people to land that can grow crops, farm cattle, or animals in the forest would suffer more than those in the west, who are more spread out, and have more access to farms, and wild territory.
People dependent on medication to survive would begin to run low on their reserves, assuming they had any. Chronic asthmatics reliant upon rescue inhalers would begin having more and more attacks, beginning the slow, and extremely painful, descent into death from suffocation. Diabetics reliant on daily insulin would begin to phsically slow, becoming constantly thirstly as their bodies began to shut down. People that would not have survived long a hundred and fifty years ago, especially in a weakened state of hunger, would die in increasing amounts.
Lack of medicines such as antibiotics, would mean an increase of infections, and diseases. A staph infected cut might mean death, if not properly cleaned and maintained. Diseases that come with poor nutrition, such as scurvy, might become rampant. Hepatitis A or B, HIV, tuberculosis, and even the flu, would mean death for many. Outbreaks of salmonella and dysentary would become a real concern, as there would no longer be any hospitals.
Then there would be people of my generation, those born in the 80's, and even some a bit before that. My generation as a whole has very little knowledge of how to function without electronics. While we can create intricate webpages, write tons of code, and manipulate photos to an amazing degree, we have no idea how to skin a deer, or build a small game trap. We don't know how to dress wounds with moss or leaves with natural antiseptic, or which roots are okay to eat. Living in nature is about as foreign to us as an alien from planet Kalooptra. All our hard work building up our technical skills would be wasted, and we would be next to useless in a community where skills and knowledge dealing with steam, health/medicines, and hunting, would be ideal.
The whole of American being in such a fractured, and vulnerable state, would be open for the taking, if a country had the means, and desire to do so. Gone would be our country with a united front, ready and able to fight for our freedom. In it's place would be small governments attempting to protect their populace from starvation, disease, and outsiders (originally other Americans), trying to steal food, or wreck mayhem. The United States would be reduced, nearly overnight, to that of a third world country. Even if a government managed to stay in place in such mayhem, it would no longer have the means of mass-transporting their soldiers, and communication, though possible, would likely be back to civil-war-like means, none of which would be able to stand up to an outside military attack on land. And let's be honest, if such an occur were to happen, how many of us would even trust the government?
So an EMP attack on the United States of America would be the death blow, hard to recover from, if recovery was possible at all. Let's all hope that isn't the way we go out.