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2006-01-22 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by Mike 2006-01-22 09:33|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 This seems to be right on target though the primary assetion is a modified MAD:

"One nuke in Paris or New York will be grossly insufficient to finish the infidel enemy but quite sufficient to provoke a massive response. Once the fissile traces are identified ten thousand warheads will be headed back the other way."

A modified MAD is a rather flawed analysis when the stated objectives of the enemy, Iran-AlQaeda is the elimination of Israel and the removal of the US as a global deterrent to Islam. They have stated that thier own anihilation would be worth the objective.

The 150 nuke attack appears right on target for the US; however, Israel would not survive a single attack. Once a single nuke is set off a cascading chain of response will be start that no one can really predict where it will end.

Example: How many nukes will make the US pull back to isolation to heal its economic wounds? Will we have the stomach to launch a massive counterstrike to eliminate Islam? Will we have the stomach to interr/deport all members of Islam allready in this country? Who else in the world will decide to take advantage of our internal distractions to advance their own objectives?

I think the 150 number is a little over stated. I am thinking more like 5-10.

Posted by TomAnon 2006-01-22 10:14|| 2006-01-22 10:14|| Front Page Top

#2 5-10 would do for a 10 year period of no-superpower US. Problem there is in 15 years you've got the same superpower bent on total victory.

Posted by 6 2006-01-22 10:58|| 2006-01-22 10:58|| Front Page Top

#3 slightly off but relating to Wretchard's point,

Natural events produce "energy equivalent" effects somewhat similar to Hiroshima for instance.

Of course Natural disasters are not precise models for "suitcase nuclear weapon" attacks, as those would most likely be targeted against population centers [not critical nodes] for maximum terror effects, but they can be useful tools for examining the aftermath.

The total energy released by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake is equivalent to 32,000 megatons of TNT or 133 exajoules (1.33Ã1020 joules). This exceeds the total amount of energy consumed in the United States in one year by 30%, or the energy released by the wind of a hurricane like Hurricane Isabel over a period of 70 days. Using the mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc^2, this amount of energy is equivalent to a mass of about 1500 kg. Equivalently, this amount of energy is enough to boil 10,000 liters (2,600 US gallons) of water for every person on Earth.

Link

Posted by RD 2006-01-22 11:08|| 2006-01-22 11:08|| Front Page Top

#4 Tom-
Actually, the number is in the middle three figures. Let me point something out here: the US is like any other nation on Earth, in that we could lose our capital and all our major cities at once and still function. Why?
For starters, The Federal Building. Just about every good sized city has one. In those buildings are, usually, at least some offices of EVERY Federal department, and with them all the regs, rules, and procedures. Then you have the Armory - one in every county (or every few counties) for every branch of the service. Finally, you have the food distribution system, overwhelmingly located in rural areas (don't forget, the system ENDS in the cities).
Why does all that matter? because in just about every other nation on earth, everything is centered in the Capital - the bureaucracy, communications, etc. For example, kill Paris and France becomes no more than a few provinces that speak variants of the same language. Kill someplace like Teheran or Beijing, and those nations cease to exist as coherent entities - their populations will be at each others throats within hours. All the reins of power have been channeled through the capital, and when they are gone, so is control over the rest of the nation. that's not the case here.
Yes, you will have horrible damage - the medical system will collapse within days. The transportation system will last as long as there's fuel in the pipelines (a week, 10 days tops) - but what you end up with is the US in, say, 1890, and that was a strong, cohesive society.
If you want to kill the US as a functioning society with NO hope of recovery, you are talking about one weapon on each state capital, the two or three major cities in each state (and in some states 4-10), then EVERY major military base, EVERY Federal building of ANY size at all. Once you add all that up, you have more targets than anybody's got weapons for today.

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2006-01-22 11:08|| 2006-01-22 11:08|| Front Page Top

#5 Mike-

What you forget about the 1890s is that people had the knowledge and tools to get everything done without electricity. I live near one of the last (non-Amish etc) communities to farm using horses and mules. Even they have a lot of equipment that relies on gasoline and electricity. There are also a lot of dead and dying trades like blacksmithing and wheel making. (If these sound simple to revive, read Foxfire #9.) I think even most of the rural areas would collapse very quickly once the transportation and the pre-packaged food run out. Remember, in the old system it takes about 30 acres of worked farmland to support a family.

At least the Amish will make it.

Posted by Faith">Faith 2006-01-22 11:52|| 2006-01-22 11:52|| Front Page Top

#6 And another thing...

This article is worried about the destruction of the fabric of our society. But what about more simple terror? Wouldn't a suitcase nuke be 9-11 multiplied tenfold?

Posted by Faith">Faith 2006-01-22 11:54|| 2006-01-22 11:54|| Front Page Top

#7 Planning for possible future disasters is entertaining & necessary, but always off the mark. There are many more "players" on the field and too many interconnecting possibilities.

"Command and control" - the Soviets had an extensive espionage network in the US since at least the 1930's. Some of it was cracked during & after WWII. Some Soviet agents in the West were never uncovered, and have likely retired on their double pensions & died of old age. The Soviets had pretty good network security. I don't think the Russians have discontinued these activities, and their espionage networks would serve as a method of C&C if the desire rose. The current Russian regime is not really friendly toward the US, and they have reason to feel humiliated to a far worse extent than Muslims. The Russians are currently assisting the Iranian mullocracy in developing their own brand of nukes.
No crash program has been launched to train adequate numbers of interpreters to even read the intelligence the US is collecting, and it's going on five years since 9/11.
The anthrax attacks of 2001 and hurricanes Katrina & Rita illustrated how brittle and unresponsive state & federal governments are when stressed. In 2001 the Senate partly shut down & was unable to do its business, even though none of its members was injured. Apparently there are no plans for an alternate seat of government should DC become unusable. We have lots of scarcely used federal facilities, but no plan to relocate and restore operations if part of the current system suddenly becomes inoperable. Vulnerabilities in our society's life support networks continue to go unaddressed: e.g., most of our gas stations can't function "off the grid". (It's not like they don't have the money and fuel to run generators, either.) The US scorns civil defense.
Compared to the unity of purpose which gripped the USA during WWII, the national "fabric and cohesion" is already severely impaired, at least in my mind. For example, some of my elderly relatives who volunteered to put their lives on the line at Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa are/were very much against the current response to 9/11. I was disgusted by this, but didn't argue with them out of respect. What does the West have the stomach for? What in our history has prepared for this era?

Posted by Whutch Threth6418 2006-01-22 13:33|| 2006-01-22 13:33|| Front Page Top

#8 #5: Mike-

What you forget about the 1890s is that people had the knowledge and tools to get everything done without electricity.

You're partly correct, I personaly can do it, I have the knowledge and the skills to live quite well without highline electricity.

But that does not mean I could, it would be a year or so to survive before any "Farm" produce was available, and very few folks have a year's supply on hand.

Plus the very real danger of looters finding that you have food, then it's kill or be killed, or starve after being robbed.

Won't work. A month's supply is practical to store, more and the cry "Hoarder" crops up.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2006-01-22 14:01|| 2006-01-22 14:01|| Front Page Top

#9 Anyone interested in how to survive in such a scenario would do well to look at Steven Stirling's books, Dies the Fire and The Protector's War. Now, Mr. Stirling is a little too much into a medieval mindset for my taste at points, but he develops the themes that Jim and Faith touch on -- how does one survive when none of the 20th and 21st century technology we rely on works?

It wouldn't be pretty.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2006-01-22 14:05|| 2006-01-22 14:05|| Front Page Top

#10 We saw that in New Orleans in Septmber. It *wasn't* pretty.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2006-01-22 14:21|| 2006-01-22 14:21|| Front Page Top

#11 5-10 nukes and the US is back to the 1890s? What universe are you people living in? We live on a continent, people. I live in Oregon on the West Coast - a nuke taking out New York City would be a horrific event but would have no major impact on food, water, oil, or electrical power in my region, let alone my town. Such a strike would impact the pricing of those commodities but would not limit their availability. You would have to take out the major hydroelectric dams here in the Northwest to impact our supply of power; we grow enough varieties of basic foodstuffs in the Pacific Northwest to survive; and California could produce all the oil products we need, under martial law. 5-10 nukes would produce incredible losses, untold human suffering, and a thirst for revenge that would result in genocidal retaliation, here and abroad. It would not collapse the industrial base of this country, that would take 50-100 nukes aimed at all major ports and transportation nodes -- you know, the scenarios in MAD when the Soviets were around? A better example would be England during WWII : rationing of all items for the national good. But no civilizational collapse -- way too Twilight Zone there, people.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2006-01-22 15:19|| 2006-01-22 15:19|| Front Page Top

#12 And if you think I was overestimating the number of nukes to take out the ports in the U.S., please take a look at "http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/ndc/wcsc/portname03.htm"
for a listing of the ports in this country.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2006-01-22 16:31|| 2006-01-22 16:31|| Front Page Top

#13 . I live in Oregon on the West Coast - a nuke taking out New York City would be a horrific event

How about taking out (Name your closest big city upwind), and it's not necessary to destroy the dams, in fact it's undesirable, just destroy the power lines for a week or so and spoil the refrigerated foodstuffs, canned goods only would survive the power loss.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2006-01-22 16:32|| 2006-01-22 16:32|| Front Page Top

#14 No, it would not take out all of the power lines. Take a look at the power grid in the U.S. -- it is not interconnected nationwide : there are separate regions that supply the power to that region. And for the EMP to take out the majority of the power substations in an area, it would have to be an airburst at a height that eliminates all but ICBMs. Remember people, they were doing above ground nuke tests in Nevada throughout the 1950s, and did not take the power down in Las Vegas, even though the tests were within 60 miles of that city. The EMP myth was started by a specific test at a height that required a very sophisticated delivery system, and even then, it only impacted half the area and for one day. The power was restored to the affected area within 2 days of the event.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2006-01-22 16:44|| 2006-01-22 16:44|| Front Page Top

#15 Most of these issues are outside my own expertise to opine on, but it certainly is true that the US infrastructure (physical, social, military and political) are considerably less centralized than in most countries.

Remember, TCP/IP (the data communications protocols used by the Internet) was originally developed by DOD precisely to allow a computer network to continue to function despite a major nuclear strike. The lack of a single central controller or directory for the Internet Protocol is a distinctly American feature - check out the European-designed OSI protocol stack for contrast.

The which? you say?

My point exactly.

My first job out of college was programming a database which was intended to allow senior commanders to figure out what forces were where, so that if we lost a major portion of the country or our forces overseas, the remaining commanders could organize quickly. That was during the cold war ... different capabilities are in place now. I don't think the reaction today after such a strike would be gentle, especially if Washington were hit. I wonder, though, how much dithering would occur if the civilian command chain were left more or less intact. Depends on who is leading it, I suspect.

Posted by lotp 2006-01-22 19:42|| 2006-01-22 19:42|| Front Page Top

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