Through the last defense-authorization cycle, lawmakers in both chambers have written electromagnetic vulnerability into the conversation about China, Russia, and “blackout warfare.” The phrase covers high-altitude nuclear pulses and, more loosely, other ways of denying power, communications, and satellites.

A phrase in a defense bill can put a subject in bounds. It can ask for assessments and for agencies to talk to each other. Readers who hear “blackout warfare” as a hardware program will look for equipment nobody has yet been told to buy. Naming China, Russia, and the electromagnetic threat in statute is not the same act as ordering a transformer.

A high-altitude burst can cover a huge footprint because the gamma rays and Compton electrons do their work in the upper atmosphere, not in a crater downtown. The grid underneath is still a mid-century machine with digital controls bolted on. Naming the threat in statute does not order a transformer.

The footprint is large because the work of the burst is done high up, over a wide area, rather than in a crater in a downtown. Under that footprint the machines that move power are still the older ones, with newer digital controls attached. Those controls made the system easier to operate. They also added parts that a fast field is good at confusing. Statute does not change either layer.

The measure of progress is boring: spare equipment staged by interconnection, procedures exercised against a space-weather alert, and a count of critical units that have been assessed for geomagnetically induced current. Speeches are not on that list.

The loose end of the phrase pulls in other ways of denying power, communications, and satellites. Those are different acts, with different buyers. One label keeps a hearing coherent and can leave procurement split. The machines that fail may coincide. The offices that can protect them do not, unless someone forces the list back down to equipment.

A unit that has not been assessed for geomagnetically induced current cannot be honestly placed in a spare plan. Spares staged by interconnection are replacements that exist on the right side of the system, not in a speech. Procedures exercised against a space-weather alert are steps someone has already tried. If those three do not move, the wording in the bill has not moved the grid.