The Nightmare Scenario
posted at 1:54 pm on June 17, 2009 by Doctor Zero
printer-friendly
In the comments to “What The President Should Have Said to the Iranian People,” CK MacLeod responded to my belief that aggressively spreading democracy is the best long-term defense against nuclear terror by doubting that a convincing scenario for a nuclear terror attack could be devised. Certainly it’s easy to frighten ourselves with Hollywood visions of a doomsday attack: terrorist flies a Cessna over the Empire State building, shouts “Allahu Ackbar!”, and detonates the suitcase nuke in the back seat. The more serious nuclear terror scenario would need to envision a rogue regime believing it could pull off such an attack without inviting its own complete destruction; complete the delivery and deployment of the device successfully; and gain something that would justify the risks and expense involved in perpetrating the attack. There are insane jihadists who think nuking an American city would be worth any sacrifices necessary, and would do so as soon as they had the capability, but is there a terror-sponsoring regime that would put that capability in their hands?
Following are the general outlines for the nuclear terror plots that seem most plausible to me. It’s a bit uncomfortable writing this stuff down, but I take comfort in knowing that intelligence and counter-terrorism professionals are way ahead of me on this. Although it is an unpleasant discussion, the plausibility of nuclear terror is an important issue that should be confronted squarely.
The Nuclear Umbrella: The most logical, and essentially guaranteed, result of a rogue regime achieving nuclear capability is the immediate foreclosure of the Saddam Hussein option. The regime could take all sorts of provocative actions without ever needing to worry about military retaliation. Their nukes would do the same thing ours do: sit in storage and terrify everyone by their mere existence. Obviously this isn’t a “nuclear terror attack” scenario, but it deserves mention because it could still result in a good deal of death and destruction, and I think it highlights the importance of spreading democracy as a method of de-fanging the world’s bad actors. Leaders chosen by free and fair elections are generally too preoccupied with domestic concerns, as the only sure path to political power, for violent military adventurism, and a republican system is exponentially less likely to sustain the kind of decades-long global outlaw misery that afflicts a country like North Korea. The nature of the state living beneath the Nuclear Umbrella is crucial. Nobody stays up at night worrying about what the nuclear France of 2009 might be up to… but the France of 1814 would have made aggressive use of such a deterrent, without ever feeling the need to actually launch one of their weapons. Considering the incredible expense of building nuclear weapons, and the price paid on the international stage for their relentless pursuit of this technology – along with the distinct lack of enemies that are actually inclined to stage conventional invasions of their territory – I doubt the ultimate goal of the rogue state nuclear quest is to mothball those warheads and keep them strictly for deterrence purposes.
The “Crazy Mahmoud” Sneak Attack: High-ranking members of the Iranian government and military have often said they would drop the “Islamic bomb” on Israel, the moment such a weapon becomes operational. Of course, blood-curdling threats to murder the Zionist entity are delivered by Islamist governments with the same frequency the American government announces winning lottery numbers. Still, Mahmoud Amadinejad once belonged to a deranged sect that believed its sacred duty was ushering in the end of days, so the Hidden Imam can return and lead the non-radioactive faithful to Paradise. Iran has been waging low-intensity war on Israel for some time, using its Hezbollah proxies, and that war has featured the deliberate targeting of civilian populations. Would they try to deliver that knockout atomic blow, and if the Iranian leadership wanted to, could it pull off the attack?
We know nothing about the command-and-control infrastructure Iran might be designing for its nuclear weapons, so it’s hard to say how many people would need to be either Hidden Imam cultists, or absolutely loyal to Amadinejad or one of the nuttier generals, in order to arrange a sudden missile launch. However, I don’t think they’d risk using their uncertain missile technology to make such an attack – their missile accuracy is low, and the missile could be shot down. Also, a missile launch would give Israel time to retaliate, even if other nations were reluctant to do so. A much more reliable tactic would be smuggling a nuclear device into Tel Aviv, and other key Israeli population centers. This would necessarily involve a much larger chain of custody for the weapon, making secure deployment much more difficult, and requiring a lot more true believers to pull it off. Since rational calculations are of limited use when predicting the actions of fanatics, the real questions would be: are there enough fanatics to carry out a nuclear doomsday attack, and are they crazy enough to do it?
The Nuclear Handoff: What if a rogue state with nuclear capabilities decided to sell its weapons to someone who would be willing to use them, rather than orchestrating an attack directly? The most obvious culprit here would be North Korea, which has literally starved itself to death in pursuit of atomic weapons. As long as nuclear blackmail of the West continues to be profitable, their nukes are a profit center. The problem is that the West is bankrupt, and may not be able to afford the payments necessary to keep North Korea in the style to which they have become accustomed… even if the West remains eternally willing to participate in the bi-annual nuclear shakedown. The global jihad is well-funded, and the mentally unstable North Korean leadership might find the idea of selling doomsday weapons to be used against its hated enemies to be irresistable.
Would they get away with it? A lot depends on the nature of the weapons sold. It occurs to me that instead of functioning multi-stage warheads with superfluous L.E.D. countdown timers spinning down to 00:00:00, terrorists could do a lot of damage with a supply of radiological material for some dirty bombs. Even a very small device could do incalculable economic damage, far beyond the number of people it killed, as utter panic gripped a major urban area like Wall Street. After deploying the first such device to establish their credentials, terrorists could do immense damage by simply threatening to detonate more – a plausible threat could turn any major city into a chaotic nightmare. They could get two or three effective “detonations” for every actual device in their possession. The results would be crippling. To put it simply, Barack Obama’s America could never absorb the economic damage from a 9/11-scale attack, the way George Bush’s America did. Terror attacks on economic centers would push an already overstressed, worse-than-broke system into total collapse.
Smuggling radiological material through our porous borders would be no more difficult than smuggling drugs, especially if the material was shipped over time, in very small amounts. Would the supplying country face total destruction as the punishment for their actions? I’m not at all convinced they would. It would be very simple for them to claim these materials were stolen. How would we get the evidence to prove otherwise, since we have loudly declared we will never use coercive interrogation techniques? Politely ask captured terror operatives if they feel like ratting out their bosses, then politely ask the bosses if they wouldn’t mind signing an affadavit that they obtained their weapons from Kim Jong Il?
Even if we did obtain sufficient physical evidence to pinpoint the source of the weapon and establish culpability, does anyone think China would allow us to nuke North Korea into oblivion? Maybe an already aged, obscenely wealthy Kim would have to go into exile after taking personal responsibility, but that’s about the worst-case scenario for them. We don’t have any effective response other than nuclear annihilation to threaten them with. Their own nuclear umbrella, and the potential damage to South Korea, precludes conventional military retaliation, which is also something China would never allow. Sanctions obviously wouldn’t be an acceptable response, or likely to cause them any pain they aren’t feeling already – the American president would be more likely to lose his office than Kim Jong Il. In short, precisely identifying the rogue state culprit behind a low-intensity nuclear attack would be less than certain, and effective retaliation less than assured. It’s the kind of dice roll that madness, desperation, or overwhelming hatred might lead a dictator to make.
The Blind Shot: There is some debate about the feasibility and effective payload of the fabled “suitcase nuke,” but there’s no question such devices are getting smaller all the time – and every new weapon comes as a nasty surprise for the people on the wrong end of it. If a bomb could be made small and simple enough for very small martyr teams to carry them, a cell the size of the 9/11 gang could set a couple of them off in a coordinated attack that left no one to interrogate. The trick would be covering up the construction and delivery of the weapon, leaving no trail that pointed definitively back to a state sponsor. In light of this, it’s troubling to consider the reports that al-Qaeda has been working to establish ties with Mexican border gangs. It would not be difficult to pay such gangs to smuggle a few guys and some luggage across the border, and once in the United States, they only need to rent some ground transportation to reach their targets and get their weapons running. The number of reliable suicide operatives who could pull off the technical aspects of such an attack are certain to be small, so it’s not a tactic that could be easily repeated – but the terror effects would be enormous.
We toppled the Taliban because they were sheltering al-Qaeda. Having learned from that experience, I suspect al-Qaeda, or a similar organization, would want a much more secure rat hole next time. What could be better than a large state with an organized military, and a nuclear umbrella? Perhaps one reason we have not seen follow-up attacks on the 9/11 scale is that terror organizations are waiting for a friendly state to get that nuclear umbrella open, giving them an impenetrable fortress to hide in.
Why would even a malevolent state get involved in taking a blind, small-scale nuclear potshot at a U.S. city? What would the strategic benefit be? Besides the above-mentioned economic damage, a true nuclear detonation, however small, could do immense political damage to the American government. Obviously, this could be done by vaporizing Capitol Hill, but a more subtle chain of political destruction could begin with even a relatively tiny nuclear detonation, at a much “softer” target, anywhere in America. Consider the chain of events: after the blast, an international terrorist organization takes direct responsibility, or is proven to have been responsible. The CIA determines the leaders of this movement are hiding in a nuclear-armed Iran. The government of Iran officially denies involvement in the attack, and a tenuous chain of evidence makes it difficult to absolutely prove they are responsible. They also adamantly refuse to extradite the terror suspects named by America as primary culprits. The American president would have few good military options, and the world community would be unlikely to sanction the wholesale nuclear obliteration of Iran – especially if the terrorists were careful to stage their attack with a low-yield device, making Iranian genocide something the less sympathetic great powers would strongly object to.
The American president could tell the rest of the world to get bent and start dropping bombs anyway, but this would effectively destroy Western political order, and it’s not hard to imagine the current U.S. president looking for any alternative to such a devastating retaliation – but anything less than that would bring his government down. A furious America could tear itself apart trying to deal with the aftermath of a small mushroom cloud in Des Moines. It might not even be necessary to detonate the warhead – what happens if we catch the would-be perpetrators of atomic terror, and we do manage to tie them to leaders hiding in Teheran? A bomb that might have gone off could still have the desired effect, creating a state of panic and political chaos, as the Administration tries to deal with an unspeakable provocation, to which every possible response is either inadequate or unthinkable.
The Tom Clancy novel “The Sum of All Fears” deals with this type of situation, and is vastly more detailed and chilling than the awful Ben Affleck movie adaptation. For one thing, the perpetrators in the book are not Austrian neo-Nazis. (All these years later, it’s still hard to keep a straight face when describing the mangled plot of the movie adaptation.) The ultimate response devised by the book’s heroes, as the only way to respond with anything less than the nuclear annihilation of Iran, is more far-fetched than the terrorist plot, especially when you compare the demonstrated competence of the real-world CIA to the abilities of Clancy’s fictional agents.
The Nightmare Scenario: All of the above situations suppose that a single rogue state, working with terrorist cutouts, attempts a limited but terrifying attack, while maintaining enough deniability to protect itself from apocalyptic retaliation. What if that setup is turned on its head, and instead of a lone rogue state trying to hide from a vengeful America after sponsoring a limited attack, the perpetrators are a coalition of hostile states that act in concert to deploy massive strikes on key targets?
We already know the Axis of Evil has regular internal communications. Terrorists and terror states have cultivated relationships with lesser vermin like Hugo Chavez and the Castro regime. A broader assortment of hostile states would benefit greatly from erasing American global power. The southern American border is porous enough for those with thousands to spend on gaining illegal entry – what would MS-13 be willing to do for a billion-dollar bounty? (The northern American border is not exactly an iron barrier, either.) If nuclear terror was directly engineered by state actors, instead of outlaw organizations, and they weren’t especially concerned with keeping their identities secret, they might be able to think on a larger scale, and execute their plan with professional intelligence operatives instead of mistake-prone suicide fanatics.
Here is the Nightmare Scenario: Hiroshima-level devices are carefully smuggled into New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, assembled by trained military and intelligence operatives, over a period of months. At the appointed hour, all three are detonated, producing unimaginable levels of carnage – along with the destruction of the nation’s political and economic systems. The culprits are revealed to be several rogue states working in concert. Who do we nuke? Everyone? With conventional military operations out of the question against multiple, widely separated enemies – several of whom would, by definition, have nuclear deterrents against conventional attack – what retaliation is possible? The geographical isolation that helped America develop so quickly and securely might prove to work against us, as China and Russia find it more in their interest to finish off a wounded United States than allow massive retaliatory strikes to produce gigantic fallout clouds along their borders.
By all means, please use the comments section to blow holes in any or all of these scenarios. Bloggers usually wince when commenters point out their mistakes, but in this case, every flaw in my reasoning or crucial fact I’ve ignored will be music to my ears. My overall feeling about the shadowy menace of nuclear terror is that none of our worst fears are likely, but I don’t think all of them are impossible. The proliferation of nuclear weapons to smaller and more unstable states, and eventually non-state actors, increases the chances of someone making the kind of miscalculation that ends with thousands of dead innocents. In previous eras, the defenders of a nation were most concerned with threats from smart enemies, but in the atomic era, we should be much more worried about the foolish and crazy ones. I continue to believe the worldwide spread of democracy is the best defense, both to produce the kind of republican states that are less likely to act aggressively or make deadly mistakes, and to drain the totalitarian swamps that outlaw terrorists like to use for cover.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Greenroom Feed
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
As a point of personal privilege, and in the interests of having a more fruitful discussion, I’d just like to underline that, though I have doubts about the plausibility of popular nuclear terrorism scenarios, my arguments against them aren’t intended to undermine arguments for a democracy promotion strategy. Rather, they’re intended to focus on the better and stronger arguments for democracy promotion, based on a realistic rather than an insustainably panicky assessment of our predicament. Nightmares do sometimes come true, but decisions made in the midst of nightmares rarely work apply very well to waking life.
When I have more time, perhaps later today, I’ll reply to Doctor Zero’s typically thoughtful post in detail, either in the comments here or in a separate GR post.
CK MacLeod on June 17, 2009 at 2:10 PM
Cliff notes?
El_Terrible on June 17, 2009 at 6:55 PM
scary thoughts all around. I do not think a nuke needs to be too terribly close to Manhattan for a devastating effect. Perhaps White Plains is close enough if it is airborne in a Cessna or some-such plane.
IanTrouble on June 17, 2009 at 7:07 PM
The terrorist scenarios are as numerous and varied as the imagination allows. But with the confluence of technology (affordable WMD’s) and non-state terrorist activism, the odds of one of these scenarios happening are almost as large as Carl Sagan’s odds on finding life elsewhere in the cosmos. Very high indeed.
Whether the trigger is radical Islam or whatever the next thing, the technology’s there, the evil individuals are always there, and so it’s just a matter of time.
Best I can tell, Iranian leadership says it wants to speed up the inevitability of this Armageddon. So I say that, for the sake of Western Civilization, it needs to be crushed.
petefrt on June 17, 2009 at 7:18 PM
Somewhere in there, I would gamble there are a couple of good points.
I have never fully read any of his posts…they go on and on and on and on and….
Let me know when you find them…
right2bright on June 17, 2009 at 7:19 PM
Well I’d certainly mourn for New York and Los Angeles.
woodNfish on June 17, 2009 at 7:19 PM
We in deep doo-doo.
davidk on June 17, 2009 at 7:23 PM
Forget nuclear.
What about a scenario where, on a coolish October friday evening about 25-30 dynamite bombs go off at High School football games across the country. Or any saturday morning at various malls. Or several river bridges along the interstate highway system. Or electrical substations.
davidk on June 17, 2009 at 7:28 PM
As I have commented before, there is already a coalition of folks working on nuclear devices, and they appear to have succeeded.
Ahmadinijad claimed Iran had thousands of centrifuges. He never said they were all in Iran. Iranian scientists have been spotted, in large numbers, in North Korea. Iran is building and testing long-range rockets, as is North Korea.
Not too long ago, a large nuclear facility in Syria, being built with the help of North Korean scientists, was destroyed by the Israelis. There are new reports that another Syrian facility has been discovered, either complete or nearly so.
Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Easy to connect the dots.
Also easy enough to connect is that Iranian Quds officers have been seen in Venezuela, and Iran and Venezuela are good trading partners.
To my mind, the scenario is one where a large-yield nuclear device is shipped to Venezuela, placed into an oil tanker, and sent to a refinery in Texas. Once in place, it’s detonated and takes out, permanently, a large chunk of America’s refining capability.
Refineries take many years to bring on line, and they need to be close enough for tankers to deliver product for refining. We already are straining our own refining capability, with refineries having to stop production of gasoline in order to produce heating oil, and vice versa. Any curtailment of those abilities can very well result in oil rationing, sky-rocketing prices, and a good portion of New England shutting down due to lack of heating oil.
Because all of our politicians have failed to deal with the issue of nuclear proliferation in any meaningful manner, there WILL come a time when we are forced to use our own nuclear weapons in response to an attack, if not to prevent one.
It’s no longer a question of “if”, but a question of “when”.
respects,
AW1 Tim on June 17, 2009 at 7:32 PM
Immediately, the State of the Union address comes to mind. Everyone, all in one place.
Count to 10 on June 17, 2009 at 7:37 PM
Sure it was long, but no longer than it needed to be.
Count to 10 on June 17, 2009 at 7:39 PM
Well, gee, I know I’ll sleep better tonight. Very thoughtful analysis, really.
Actually, read some of Joel Rosenberg’s novels – he addresses MANY of these scenarios throughout. This is scary stuff and I agree with AW1 Tim, it is not a question of “if” but “when.”
mimi1220 on June 17, 2009 at 7:40 PM
What are your thoughts on an EMP attack using most of the same scenarios?
Would that particular technology make it easier to detect who was responsible?
katy on June 17, 2009 at 7:41 PM
It’ll be a combination of the above scenarios and worse than we can imagine. We will get hit by rogues, however the established military power base outside of the US, Russia and China will issue a joint communique instructing the US that it’s over, one launch detected and there will be a final complete launch against us. So we surrender. The end.
pc on June 17, 2009 at 7:47 PM
Read the book……..
“One Second After” by William R. Forstchen.
One Second After
Cheers !
Kenny Solomon
Locked and loaded in South Flori-duh.
E T Cartman on June 17, 2009 at 7:51 PM
Another great post, Doc, thanks.
Not to add to the sense of vulnerability, but also consider the ramifications of a containerized nuke riding a merchant ship into a major seaport (esp. Houston) and detonating there. Or consider the small plastic semi-submersibles being built at a rate of 75/year to smuggle tons of narcotics from Colombia and Mexico…Lots of options available once AQ gets the technology and the gumption.
Since Defense and Homeland Security are ranking somewhere near the bottom of the current administration’s list of spending priorities, it’s a good thing we’ve apologized to everyone so they won’t attack us anymore! (/sarc off)
As you note, clearly the non-state actors working as proxies are the bigger menace. Even the Axis of Evil has to consider the day after tomorrow – after all, in the event of such an attack, one possible U.S. response is to pull out the stops, to heck with world opinion, and nukes all around – but Russia and China seeing an opening would make for an interesting twist. Of course, China loses its largest trading partner and debtor nation in that scenario…
Oh, and just started re-reading Sum of All Fears…
Right on June 17, 2009 at 7:52 PM
Strongly seconded… an outstanding and unnerving book, by an author who doesn’t know how to write a bad one.
I have to imagine an EMP attack would be one of the more difficult ones to trace to the source, particularly since it would destroy so much of the data that would be needed for the task. The intelligence community certainly has hardened data storage systems, but the general network chaos from such a massive system disruption would make any sort of electronic intelligence painfully difficult to gather… not to mention the horrific collateral damage from an EMP wave hitting commercial aviation during peak hours at major airport hubs.
As terrible as these ideas are, exploring them through speculation and fiction is an important part of defending against them. Here’s another novel of historic interest in the War on Terror: Storming Heaven by Dale Brown. If you’re not familiar with it, check it out, and keep in mind that it was written in 1995. Funny story: I was sitting in one of the airports featured in the book, waiting to catch a late night flight, as I was reading it. I could look up from the pages and see the locations the author was describing. It added considerably to the impact of the scene…
Doctor Zero on June 17, 2009 at 8:09 PM
What’s your problem? If you don’t have the attention span required to read DZ’s posts, then maybe don’t click on his posts.
amkun on June 17, 2009 at 8:11 PM
Thanks! watched the fox video and will get the book. Interesting that no one wants to address this…
Locked and loaded in Colorado!
Great read Dr. Zero.
katy on June 17, 2009 at 8:12 PM
And no doubt a little anxiety on the flight…
katy on June 17, 2009 at 8:15 PM
“Fabled Suitcase” Nukes?
Hmmm….
Fun pictures of suitcase nukes…you will want one in your backyard!
PierreLegrand on June 17, 2009 at 8:18 PM
Dr. Zero,
One thing to keep in mind is that the US Military spent a great deal of time and money on hardening specific targets against an EMP attack. A good deal would be vulnerable, for sure, but important strategic systems and weapons would not. We’d be able to see where the missile boosted up from within seconds of it’s launch, and that data would be preserved. So would our deployed SSBN force.
Not disagreeing with your damage assessment to the civilian infrastructure, but only with the premise that we wouldn’t know of whence the attack came.
respects,
AW1 Tim on June 17, 2009 at 8:22 PM
Well, no…
It has literally starved itself.
However, if it had literally starved itself to death, it would be dead.
Just had to get that off my chest.
Typhoon on June 17, 2009 at 8:26 PM
The EMP scenario sounds like the most likely to me.
It’s hard enough to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs, but it takes another leap in technology to build viable reentry vehicles and small nukes to fit in them, as well as delivering them accurately enough to hit a specific city from halfway around the world.
Much easier to just lob the nuke to a point a couple hundred miles over the center of the US and detonate it there for the EMP effect. You don’t need much accuracy and you don’t need a reentry vehicle.
The damage would be horrific, but only in an economic sense. Which further complicates our response.
Haven’t read “One Second After”, but it sounds good… er, *bad*, but good.
ZenDraken on June 17, 2009 at 8:27 PM
I just remember seeing “The Peacemaker” for the first time, and it scared me thinking if it could really be pulled off. It only took 2 guys to sneak a backpack weapon from a Russian satellite into the US using a Diplomatic pouch.
I remember, please help, there was an airplane bombing years ago and when they arrested him it came to pass that he had Diplomatic immunity from Saddam Hussein.
broker1 on June 17, 2009 at 8:34 PM
Why smuggle anything into the US? Put the nuke on a ship. Sail it as close to Long Beach harbor as you can get, say 2 or 3 miles offshore. Detonate. Or put it on almost any lame missile and lob it in from 50 miles offshore creating a very efficient airburst over LA.
The resulting EMP will spoil the computers on so many cars that the economic chaos and disorder will be incalculable. So will the political disorder that follows. Obama would probably have genuine cause to cancel elections.
You don’t have to miniaturize a nuke if you bring it in on a ship or just want to lob it 50 miles or so – the lowest of low tech will do the job just fine, thanks.
ElRonaldo on June 17, 2009 at 8:35 PM
this entire article is completely moot.. we arent waterboarding or torturing anyone and all our enemies are going to Club Med ……………no one would ever nuke us now sing with me …………koom bay ya koom bay yahhhhhhhhhhhh
coninnyc on June 17, 2009 at 8:45 PM
I too would like some insight without having to read a book right now. Thanks though E T Cartman for the reference material.
The latest anthrax reference from al-Qaida was interesting. There are some bio-warfare materials not so hard to make, or steal. To me they would be easier to smuggle in and spread than setting off a nuke.
A fear I have is an attack on our nuclear power plants. I have read where some of these have been entered by unauthorized peoples with no notice by security. That was some time back, but it is still a concern of mine.
We attend college sporting events quite often. The yutes play college soccer, and I LOVE college football. I very much worry about these type of events, along with grocery stores, schools, churches, and daycares. Notice the last one listed was on Carlos Bledsoe’s list. I refuse to call him by his preferred Muslim name! Any of the afore mentioned scary scenarios could be deployed, and there are always people like Carlos who will use guns.
I cannot remember where I read this, but some terrorist recently said they did not need to have all the elements for a big bang, nuclear bomb or another attack using airplanes. He said they could go forward with attacks similar to those practiced on Israel. My take was the reference was to suicide bombers with the backpacks and belts. But these people are not rational, so who knows?
Regardless of what they do, I vote with all who say it is just a matter of when. I wish someone would study up on how these terrorists decide when, and where they attack. 9-11 was picked for a reason, and there has been much said about that, but something tells me we need to be thinking about how they come to select these dates. Some might say our intelligence has performed this task, but I wonder. They have been greatly weakened as of late.
I read the entire article, and thought it was informative. To me, it was also an alert, and a call for all of us to never let our guards down. We need to be like the Boy Scouts, and always be prepared. Our bridges, rail system, and financial system if attacked could cause this nation to come to a skreetching halt. Are you ready if it did?
freeus on June 17, 2009 at 8:47 PM
Retaliation for a strike?
Turn Mecca and Medina into a glass parking lot.
broker1 on June 17, 2009 at 9:01 PM
We have already set one of the scenarios in motion……..
………… those who want to destroy us see our current weakness, and know it is time to strike.
Ironically, Obama will have fired or arrested the person or team that was put in place to stop it before it happens…….
……… Keep watch on the constant attempts to hack our databases that control our infrastructure, power grids, water supplies, and communications.
Once they go………..
…………. don’t look into the light.
Seven Percent Solution on June 17, 2009 at 9:04 PM
To add to your “Crazy Mahmoud” Sneak Attack” scenario – if they do manage a nuclear attack on Israel, I have no doubt that Israel will be able to retaliate and one target will be Mecca – try to imagine EVER having peace after that.
happi on June 17, 2009 at 9:19 PM
Good article, good questions to ask (if terrifying).
You did not mention one thing, though: the domestic response of the administration – certainly the present one, perhaps any.
The FIRST step, or one of the first steps, will be to put the whole country on lockdown by declaring martial law and start the business of rounding up all known weapons. Why? Because they know that once the shock wears off, Americans will be orders of magnitude more pissed than they were on 9/11, only this time they’ll be pissed at the government incompetents who, through inaction or deliberate choice, will have allowed it to happen (not closing the borders, scanning Grandma at the airport while allowing Achmed to go on his merry way, constantly asking what we did wrong, etc). That in itself will lead to a bloodbath we haven’t seen since the Civil War.
splink on June 17, 2009 at 9:19 PM
Although I am probably possessed of a minority opinion here, I believe the US should demonstrate an as-yet-unseen levels of savagery and ruthlessness against suspected or known host state(s) if our country endures another 9-11-like terrorist attack; that is, if we suffer an attack less catastrophic and crippling than those described in the scenarios above. Our enemies think us weak-willed. We need to disabuse them of that notion. Thus, if another gang of misfit Sudanese or whatever shoot down or bomb a passenger plane in American airspace or bomb an Army base, I believe our government should level the capital city of their native country should that country be neutral or hostile to the United States. And no, we don’t invade to liberate or rebuild or introduce democracy or any of that. We go in, hunt down and kill their leaders, and leave, with the place shambles and ruin, ashes and dust. I’d suggest salting the ground, too, but perhaps that is too Old Testament for some. If, however, one of the scenarios described above should happen, then I would advocate retaliating against the likeliest perpetrator, to hell with courtroom shadow-of-a-doubt certainty. If the use of nukes would create too great a possibility for catastrophic escalation, then let’s by all means employ conventional weapons. The results of saturation bombing by B-52s, for example, are not so much different from small-scale nuclear strikes. Bottom line: Going down without a fight is simply unacceptable. No president would remain president for long if he demanded a day in the World Court in response to an attack on our soil causing thousands or millions of lives.
troyriser_gopftw on June 17, 2009 at 9:22 PM
We can now try to estimated the absolute minimum possible mass for a bomb with a significant yield. Since the critical mass for alpha-phase plutonium is 10.5 kg, and an additional 20-30% of mass is needed to make a significant explosion, this implies 13 kg [28 lbs.] or so. A thin beryllium reflector can reduce this by a couple of kilograms, but the necessary high explosive, packaging, triggering system, etc. will add mass, so the true absolute minimum probably lies in the range of 11-15 kg (and is probably closer to 15 [33 lbs.] than 11 [24 lbs.]).
This is probably a fair description of the W-54 Davy Crockett warhead. This warhead was the lightest ever deployed by the US, with a minimum mass of about 23 kg [50 lbs] (it also came in heavier packages) and had yields ranging from 10 tons up to 1 Kt in various versions. The warhead was basically egg-shaped with the minor axis of 27.3 cm and a major axis of 40 cm. The test devices for this design fired in Hardtack Phase II (shots Hamilton and Humboldt on 15 October and 29 October 1958) weighed only 16 kg [35 lbs.], impressively close to the minimum mass estimated above. These devices were 28 cm by 30 cm.
- Carey Sublette (18 May 2002)
MB4 on June 17, 2009 at 9:45 PM
Ya think?
Professor Blather on June 17, 2009 at 9:48 PM
Frankly, if I were a terrorist, I think I would probably go with putting the toxin botulism in food. In fact, spread the rumor! It’s in All you Can Eat Buffets all over the country! It will help cut down on obesity.
MB4 on June 17, 2009 at 9:58 PM
As a practical matter though, wouldn’t it be easier to attack a target other than America? Confused as her response might be, the United States might be able to conceivably have one–Obama willing or not.
What could Berlin do? Or Rome? Or Tokyo? Or even nuclear powers like France or the UK?
What would Americans be willing to sacrifice to save Frankfurt, Lyon, Milan, or Osaka?
Very little, I suspect. Very little.
shropshirelad on June 17, 2009 at 10:27 PM
\
hehe…Is this an attempt to be funny?
You have some sort of confidence that the same folks who didn’t see 9/11 coming, who didn’t stop Saddam from moving his weapons out of Iraq, who had no idea of the various infiltrators in our agencies are going to have some clue on how to stop any of those attacks. muahahahaha…They have gotten lucky, lucky that our military has killed so many of their leaders and lucky that the remaining Islamic Nutjobs have taken to Napoleon’s dictim. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Our mistake is we are surrendering to Islam what the jihadist always wanted. Why die?
PierreLegrand on June 17, 2009 at 10:33 PM
That’s the part of all this that lingers as the great and terrible unsettled question for me. What would we do in response to an attack like this? Somehow I don’t think “sheets of glass” would be the minority opinion, and we are a country whose leaders are chosen through elections. If the response to 9/11 had been strongly worded letters to the U.N., a round of economic sanctions against the Taliban, and the kind of hapless law-enforcement approach Clinton ordered after the Cole bombing, I doubt the administration would have lasted to the midterm elections in 2002. If any president contemplates responding to a nuclear attack with anything except overwhelming force, we’ll find out just how fast a U.S. president can be removed from office. Knowing this, an enemy who has studied our political culture would want to create a situation where the expectations of the public are impossible to meet – give us no targets to strike, or too many targets, or set up a situation where retaliation would bring us into direct and possibly physical conflict with other major powers. A relatively small nuclear wound could be made far more severe because of such convulsions.
So we might have sailed past the suitcase nuke and entered the realm of the lunchbox nuke? Great!
The original question that led to this post was specifically about nuclear terrorism, but you’ve got to admit, bio-weapons give a lot of evil bang for the buck too. Wasn’t there a Clancy novel where the bad guys were dispensing weaponized ebola out of shaving cream cans? I think there’s a certain terror cachet about nukes that’s hard to duplicate with anything else, though. It might not be entirely logical, as a biological or chemical attack could be easier to pull off and just as lethal, but the terror effect from anything radioactive would be incomparable. Unless the enemy gets something incredibly gruesome, like weaponized ebola, off the ground, biological and chemical weapons are the Hyundai Genesis to the Lexus of nuclear bombs – technically comparable and lots cheaper, but lacking the mystique.
Doctor Zero on June 17, 2009 at 10:48 PM
A real Hyundai, or more like a number of Yugos, would be to simply replicate the D.C. snipers. Units of 2, or just solo, maybe 20 guys, like 9/11, 19 + 1, each unit going around the country hitting city after city from each unit’s list of 10-25 cities. Strike 1 to a few times in a city, playing it by ear, then on to another city. The D.C. snipers cause a pretty fair amount of terror in the D.C. area, so imagine the effect nationwide. It would probably take quite some time to even catch most of them. it took a while to catch the D.C. snipers and they weren’t very careful at all.
MB4 on June 17, 2009 at 11:04 PM
Somewhere in there, I would gamble there are a couple of good points.
I have never fully read any of his posts…they go on and on and on and on and….
Let me know when you find them…
right2bright on June 17, 2009 at 7:19 PM
.
May I suggest taking an Evelyn Wood course.
.
And people said math was hard. /s
Americannodash on June 17, 2009 at 11:08 PM
I have to email this to my office and read it there early tomorrow so I’m alone and then I can relly study it…because it looks like a very good read
CCRWM on June 17, 2009 at 11:13 PM
All of this is well within the realm of possibility….and we’re f2#$@#$ worried about reading the terrorists their rights.
F#!# it all.
Hawkins1701 on June 17, 2009 at 11:44 PM
It seems the end must come, as the end seems always to come for anything that has a beginning in time. Nevertheless, it seems none of us knows how the end will come, so that it seems best that one make the most general preparations for which one has imagination and resources. Nor does it seem that very many have made this preparation: the preparation to speak in the aftermath. What will one suggest? What will one teach? What will one command? What will one ask? What will one answer?
Kralizec on June 17, 2009 at 11:47 PM
No not quite: If I am in charge, A series of surgical strikes in Mecca all around the Ka’aba, but not touching it. And then through those channels that we all know stay open to Syria, Iran etc. and I give them a list of names, whose heads I want to see literally on a silver platter on my desk in 24 hours or we all know where the next missile is going to hit.
Teacher in Tejas on June 18, 2009 at 12:46 AM
if creating terror and economic chaos is your only goal you could simply go very low tech…I don’t know how many remember the old mid 80’s Chuck Norris movie “Invasion USA” but the idea would be very much in line with shutting down the economy. Simply send suicide squads to major shopping malls across middle America and regardless of the body count you would shut the economy down in a heart beat..It would be pretty easy to slip a couple hundred terrorists into this country and weapons would be easy to get too. Think about it it would not matter if you killed all the suicide squads just the idea of them would bring the economy to a halt. And it would not require any WMDs just bullets and willing trigger fingers. I mean think about it you would not even need a terrorist cell just your average street gang would work.
JKotthoff on June 18, 2009 at 2:04 AM
I know that major terrorist groups tend to prefer large-scale attacks such as 9/11, but my family and I have been pleasantly surprised for years that no one has taken small bombs into U.S. restaurants, stores and movie theaters, then left them under their seats or in the rest rooms. A few of those going off would scare the stuffing out of consumers and go a long way to wreck our economy. Possibly even more than Obama.
KyMouse on June 18, 2009 at 6:19 AM
Will somebody PLEASE evacuate Israel and nuke the whole goddamn mideast out of existance before this happens ?????
My 4 step plan for world peace ;
1) deport all muslims back to the mideast
2) evacuate israel – send them all back to Europe
3) nuke the mideast out of existance
4) PEACE ON EARTH !!!!!!!!!!!!
LODGE4 on June 18, 2009 at 6:39 AM
I only agree if Obama is in office. If, however, a nuclear attack occurred under Bush’s watch, and we weren’t already around the world after 911, we would certainly fight this enemy, regardless of whether the Eurotrash respected us. They have been and will be our “friends” regardless of the lack of love for us.
How easy would this be? I have thought the same thing. It only takes a few…and there are many within the US who are willing. They could travel across the US without suspicion. They could network without scrutiny. Malls, churches, parks, etc. I really cannot believe this hasn’t been planned. It’s either a testimony to our good intelligence, or, it is a sign that a big one is coming.
Mommypundit on June 18, 2009 at 6:50 AM
Broker1 has an interesting idea, but it gives them incentive to really hide the origination of the attack. I mean, Russia could sneak one in knowing we’d blow up Mecca. Not that I care about Mecca, but I’d hate to see us manipulated like that.
A hole I see in the scenarios is unintended consequences. No matter how well you plan, complicated endeavors may not have the desired outcome.
hogfat on June 18, 2009 at 7:55 AM
So you’re suggesting we retaliate by nuking everything around the Ka’aba, but leaving it untouched… so the Muslims would still be obligated to make their pilgrimage to the site, except now they would have to march through a radioactive wasteland to get there? Dude, that’s cold. I hope the Pentagon gets in touch with you to flesh out that battle plan. Deterrence, like revenge, is a dish best served cold.
I had the same thought – we’d never sit on the sidelines after an attack on Europe, and I think we’re a couple of Obamas away from a president being able to survive doing so. Also, the risk-to-reward ratio for nuclear terror in Europe is too low. They’re already pretty far down the list of serious opponents in the jihad’s eyes, while some of the European states are actually more likely to react with immediate, deadly fury to such an attack than we are. For all the smarmy talk about “unilateralism” the French like to toss around in the United Nations, they move quickly and ruthlessly when they feel threatened themselves – just ask Greenpeace.
Doctor Zero on June 18, 2009 at 8:06 AM
If I were China, with a burgeoning populace and increasing need for natural resources, I would detonate nukes over the US, Europe, and S. Pacific. The EMPs would wipe out communications, supply chains, and production in major Westernized nations – they would be reduced to worse than Third World living conditions, with no aid available from traditional allies. 80% of America’s populace would die off within a year from starvation and civil unrest, leaving a fairly intact infrastructure in place. Since the US is already hocked to the gills to China, it wouldn’t take much international “persuasion” for China to swoop in “to protect its “investments” and resettle America with it’s own displaced populace. It’s a win/win/win for China. They get the space and natural resources they need without radiating their targets, they have a cover for colonizing the States (just trying to recoup their trillions in investments), and no nation is strong enough to retaliate.
Redhead Infidel on June 18, 2009 at 8:35 AM
A major political party, academia and the mass media is infiltrated over a period of 50 years. Eventually, although reasonable and patriotic citizens exist, the control of the public message is so overwhelming that any reasonable and patriotic voices left are afraid of speaking the truth. The actions of the infiltrated party have many glaring examples throughout history to define them, but true history is no longer taught in the infiltrated schools and the words that describe these actions have either been turned into unacceptable profanity or have been changed to describe only the members of the opposition parties. Definitions in 1950’s dictionaries that described the actions of the villains of the last world war now have been changed to describe aspects of the opposition party ideology. The language is totally controlled by the infiltrators and a generation has been trained to believe that deciding what to have for dinner or watch on TV is “thinking” and the public no longer has the intellectual curiosity to understand with any coherence the behavior and action of their semi-elected officials. Eventually, when the time is right, the infiltrators throw all their resources into promoting a socially acceptable, photogenic stalking horse. The media is a willing and active accomplice in selling the false prophet and the populace is dumbed down to the point that seemingly intelligent individuals no longer have the cognitive ability to separate reality from their own emotional dysfunction. In addition, a cult of personality has been created where an individual’s ability to reach a certain level of fame is the only characteristic needed for the masses to raise that person to the “elite” class. The citizenry has accepted the position of inferiority and helplessness created for them by the infiltrators. In this noisy and directionless culture, intentionally created over 50 years, the limited attention span and intellectual ability of the masses allows the false prophet to be swept into office in a barrage of glossy advertisements and meaningless sound bites and slogans. The national legislative bodies are also taken control of as weaker clones of the prophet are swept into office on the wave of ignorance and apathy. Once in control, the infiltrators, now known as the Leaders, rapidly and ruthlessly dismantle the systems and protections that allowed for the creation of the most successful nation state the world had ever known. The enemies of that nation state, in collusion with the infiltrators for 50 years, sit and wait victoriously for the certain and near time when their resources will not have to be spent on horrifying weapons of mass destruction or covert activities but can be turned to financing the chains that will enslave the one time proud populace and creating the machinery and systems that will plunder the resources so long denied it’s rightful owners.
The fear of nuclear armed terrorists is a Trojan horse concealing the true nature of the danger and evil at our doorstep.
peacenprosperity on June 18, 2009 at 9:03 AM
There will never be a nuclear device exploded in this country but within a short amount of time we will be able to go to our gulf beaches or to the shores of Alaska and see without binoculars men from foreign countries working on oil rigs belonging to venezuela, cuba, china and russia. They will sell us that oil that will be turned into gasoline that will cost $10 a gallon.
peacenprosperity on June 18, 2009 at 9:12 AM
Actually Doc, I should have been more clear. I did not mean nukes in Mecca, but a series of cruise missle hits, with pin point precision. The question has been asked if Islam itself could survive the destruction of Mecca. This was debated at lengh on Donald Sensing’s old blog and others a few years back.
Islam is a “place specific” religion more so than any of the others including Judaism; the Jews lasted for two millenia without a holy land. Likewise the Roman Catholic church would definitely go on if Rome were destroyed.
The utter destruction of God’s holiest place on earth would definitely cause a rethinking of the tenets of that religion. And I think the threat of that is something that most Muslim state leaders would not be willing to occur, lest their subject people’s begin thinking about what it all means, and starts asking questions about those “Islamic governments.”
Teacher in Tejas on June 18, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Nope. In their minds, Allah could not possibly allow it, especially if you take out Medina and Dome o’ the Rock while you’re at it. It would prove he does not exist. Islam as we know it would likewise cease to exist.
splink on June 18, 2009 at 3:35 PM
Like Iraqi or Afghani “democracy” … or should we just send a large coke and fries to the tyrants.
Spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the best long-term defense against death.
AZ_Redneck on June 18, 2009 at 8:50 PM
So … my skills at Fallout 3 may come in handy then?
TheUnrepentantGeek on June 19, 2009 at 10:41 AM
The only way to have peace after glassing one of the “big three” of Islam* would be to nail all three sites simultaneously (what some call a ‘home run’), as well as inflict heavy civilian casualties on as much of the Arab world as possible. I know that’s a terribly coldblooded thing to say, but if Israel didn’t, within days they’d have every Muslim who could wield a rusty AK-47 going after them in the manner of a Zerg rush. Besides going the ‘fortress Israel’ route (VERY risky) the only way to survive the certain mob charge would be to sufficiently disorganize the nearby populace and drastically cut down their numbers.
Now…assuming a successful “home run” and survival of the frothing horde, there MIGHT actually be a very good chance for peace. Islam is an incredibly site-specific religion, and if those sites go kablooie they cannot be replaced nor could substitutes be made for them. Imagine if not one single Muslim could make the pilgrimage because the place simply didn’t exist!
*Dome of the Rock, Mecca, Medina.
Dark-Star on June 20, 2009 at 10:38 PM