>>20100256
IIRC anon read that a high altitude nuclear burst (above the ionosphere) could take out the entire east coast (or west coast) of the US and the subsequent strain and feedback would cripple or destroy most of the remaining power transmission media nationwide.
Who could do this? In order from smallest to largest? North Korea could pull it off for the west coast, and any nation with ICBM's could do it potentially nationwide. Russia? Well, high altitude burst of a really high yield nuclear weapon could likely spell lights out for the entire US for months. It is likely that we could not recover from that, as we no longer manufacture the equipment needed to transmit power to the end users, ESPECIALLY transformers.