[ben_w]

Indeed.

One thing that's an open pair of questions for me is: exactly how dangerous is a high-altitude EMP anyway? And do countries with nuclear weapons actually model this in war games?

I've seen it suggested that even a relatively modest HAEMP would be able to physically damage most transformers in the continental USA, necessitating replacement of all of them at the same time when they're all custom and have month-to-year lead times. No electricity, no fuel pumps, no refrigeration, in the US 90% of the population starves within a year.

The US power grid could have been defended in the decades since the March 1989 geomagnetic storm revealed such weakness, but given various evidence such as the fires in California caused by failure of century-old power lines that were well past due for repair, I doubt they have been.