[motohagiography]

Maybe there is a solar flare incident that causes it, but as it relates to a cyber or EMP attack destabilizing a country into cannibalistic chaos - it isn't really in anyones interest, as most strategic policymakers understand that you get something much worse than the devil you know when you do. Even destabilizing so-called "minor" powers like Iraq, Libya, and Syria created international terror cells and radicalized sympathetic groups on every continent. It's a recipe for hell.

If an attack took out the whole US grid in an irrepairable way, the power vacuum would cause huge wars around the globe, and it would cost the aggressor at least a couple of major cities from a nuclear strike response. It would also cause mass casulties from refugee inflows taking advantage of the chaos. There would be so much death it's just statistics at that point - it's just not a rational decision for an aggressor country to cause an EMP or to leverage it. Imagine trying to occupy a country that had been EMP'd? It would be like 100 Afghanistans and a thousand Vietnams, just in America. In that total failure situation, everyone is going to die of starvation or infection and disease, so responding with violence at that stage to mitigate it is a relative mercy.

Understanding those consequences of destroying civiliztion, if I were a national leader, I wouldn't hesitate to order that counter strike, and I am sure the actual leaders apprehend that logic as well. If there were a question of attribution, the first one to move against our allies would have to lose their capitol. Aggressors only understand costs, and failure to impose them is an invitation . This Mutually Assured Destruction is the worst, but only guarantee against an EMP attack.

If it were a solar event, nations would still have to protect allies militarily, and I don't see anyone benefiting from the chaos enough to let it sustain, especially when the rational actors will escalate apocalyptic violence until some order is restored. Grim thoughts, but oddly hopeful because I think if people understand the inevitable horrific alternatives to keeping it together, we will have ample incentive to do so.

[gremlinsinc]

I always wondered if a foreign country could create near microscopic, or at least bug size drones ...land them around the country slowly on top of transformers until there's one on every transformer and power station/sub-station in strategic locations...then poof .. send a tiny zap, or just ignite via .01 ounces of napalm, or something... something that small would be hard to notice, as a bonus they could also do the same at every fueling station.

Cut not only electricity but the ability for people to run, or flee or w/e.

[motohagiography]

Well, if you're talking about releasing something that wrecks economies and destroys societies and cultures, yet leaving them intact for occupation, value extraction, and management as vassals, I'm not sure you'd need something that large and energy intensive. But that's technology we or our adversaries just don't have, so it probably isn't a threat.

[...]

[gremlinsinc]

no, but you'd want it to be something that doesn't bring 'nukes' to the table, because that's total destruction of everything. Plus the people will love you if you just feed them..those who don't starve first.... It'd be an easy way to lay waste to an entire country's gdp, and I don't think it'd even be costly. Tiny drones (once developed) could be deployed fairly cheaply, I'd imagine. They'd land like a little butterfly, wings would be a solar panel awaiting command to do w/e they're planned to do, or just create a wire-mesh network of listening devices to spy near/far...

I've wanted to write a sci-fi novels along these lines...except America is in civil war, and hacktivist freedom fighters use drones to essentially fight back against the rogue fascist govt that's taken over.