Regarding Pepe Escobar’s post about an Israeli F-35 with a nuclear weapon/EMP over Iran:

Why an F-35?

Stealth?

Then you’re limited to a weapon that can be carried in its internal weapons bay.

We are now talking about an ASAT-type weapon—a missile launched from a plane that can make it to outer space.

(Anti-Satellite=ASAT)

Israel has no such weapon.

And if it did, it couldn’t fit in the internal weapons bay of an F-35.

Now, if Pepe had said that the aircraft was an F-15, we could entertain such a possibility, especially when including the need for externally mounting this weapon.

But he said F-35.

This kills the story right off the bat.

But, just playing along, let’s assume the Israelis built an ASAT-type weapon that could fit into the internal weapons bay of an F-35, or—just spitballing here—the Israelis decided to forego any effort of stealth and mount the missile externally, like the Russian Kinzhal/Mig-31 duo.

What size warhead could it carry?

The AIR-2 Genie air-to-air missile had a 1.5 kiloton warhead.

Why is this important?

Most Cold War EMP scenarios envisioned weapons of yields between 1 and 10 megatons.

The size of a warhead deliverable into outer space from an F-35 platform would be very small.

Without getting into the physics of nuclear weapons design/gamma ray generation potential, any realistic nuclear warhead that could fit on a missile deliverable into space by an F-35 would be of a very small yield.

As such, the size of the territory adversely impacted by the EMP produced would be very small.

As such, the scenario postulated by Pepe Escobar’s source is extremely risk averse, with little or no meaningful impact.

In short, it doesn’t make sense, even if it was able to be carried out, which it isn’t.

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