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The big one

50 comments on The big one

The big one

: Nicholas Kristof has a frightening column in the New York Times today. It presents a scenario of a 10-megaton nuclear device lit at Times Square (why the hell does everyone have to use that as the next ground zero: the very corner where I work?). OK, we’ve heard that before. But then he says:

Could this happen?

Unfortunately, it could – and many experts believe that such an attack, somewhere, is likely. The Aspen Strategy Group, a bipartisan assortment of policy mavens, focused on nuclear risks at its annual meeting here last week, and the consensus was twofold: the danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government hasn’t done nearly enough to reduce it.

In his next column, he’ll tell us how to reduce that risk. If it’s not too late.

50 responses to “The big one”

  1. Whopper Man Avatar
    Whopper Man

    Scaremongering? Naaaaa…
    Let’s see now, which country used atomic weapons against civilians again?

  2. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    What’s worse, Jeff, is that Kristof is only talking about a 10 kilotonne weapon — you’re off by a factor of 1000.
    You may recall that some time ago I pointed out the next big one could be a 10 kilotonne bomb, and you thought I was joking or making light of the problem and said “the hell with you.”

  3. Charlie (Colorado) Avatar
    Charlie (Colorado)

    Oh, and by the way, “Whopper Man”: fuck you.

  4. Robert McClelland Avatar
    Robert McClelland

    This article and the belief that the US will be nuked by terrorists is completely, 100% wrong. Why? Because if terrorists do ever get their hands on a nuke, Israel will be the target. The reason I’m certain of this, besides the fact that the Arab population hates Israel far more than it hates America, is that America is less likely to respond to a terrorist nuke with nukes of its own. With Israel, it’s guaranteed they’d nuke one or more Arab nations in response, thereby ensuring the unification of all Arabs against them.

  5. Frank Martin Avatar
    Frank Martin

    The thing to be frightened of is not just the initial bomb from our enemies, but the natual reaction that Americans will have afterwards. It’s difficult for some people to remember, but we have lots of nuclear weapons as well and if a weapon like that is ever used against us, I defy anyone to tell me that the president isnt going to react by launching a few against whomever we think was the entity was that did it.
    Not responding or issuing legal edict from turtle bay will not be an option fro the President if that happens.
    And where does it end? Fact is, we have a huge distructive capability. We dont use it, because we are basically humane, we generally dont want to kill anyone as a matter of fact and policy. But if Americans are slaughtered ‘en masse’ in downtown manhattan, Americans are not going to remain altruistic. When it becomes kill or be killed, we stand unmatched in history as a huge distructive force. Ask anyone whos been to Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, Tokyo , Nagasaki, Atlanta, Gettysburg.
    We nearly eliminated the japanese race because they had the balls to attack a military base in the middle of the pacific. We slaughtered the plains indians wholesale, simply because we wanted their land. We killed in the past, and we can kill in the future if need be. We stand unique in the worlds country in the fact that this little experiment that we call “America” is to many of us, our last hope. Theres no place in the world that will accept most of us as exiles, as most of the worlds countries have cast us and our families off already. While people around the world can always look to America for sanctuary if their counties fall, if America falls, the world will not embrace Americans on their doorstep.
    Every thanksgiving through America,where families get together, the conversation eventually gets to a discussion of “how we got here”, and all to often its answered by tales of exile, deprivation and survival. Its what binds us together as Americans, we were all kicked out ran out, chased out or thrown out of every other country in the world. America is not just our home, its our last hope.
    The Jihadis may think that we will shirk away and stop supporting israel if we are hit really hard, but the more likely result is that well trained men living in air conditioned submarines and missle silos and aircraft cockpits all over the globe will barely break a sweat turning every town and city with more than 5,000 people from morocco to malaysia into fused glass.
    Remember, our men arent dying in Iraq because our enemies are effective fighters, They are dying because we wish to remain humane. We can kill wholesale if we choose to do so. The fact that we havent chosen that route is purely subjective to the will of the American people. if our enemies remove that, I fear, not for us, but for the rest of the world.

  6. Phelps Avatar
    Phelps

    Ditto Charlie; a 10 kiloton is a bad, bad thing. A 10 megaton is a city buster that would take out the entire island and the surrounding buroughs, AND a good hunk of Jersey.

  7. Robert McClelland Avatar
    Robert McClelland

    Another reason America wouldn’t be a target if terrorists got their hands on a nuke is that they’d want to ensure it was deployed. In order to use in on America, it would involve a higher risk of it being seized and subsequently neutralized. Therefore the best way to ensure it was not wasted would be to use it in a country where it was easier to get it to. And that would be Israel.

  8. Robert McClelland Avatar
    Robert McClelland

    The fact that we havent chosen that route is purely subjective to the will of the American people.
    No it isn’t. It’s because the rest of the world would bitch slap America into the middle of next week.

  9. MPF Avatar
    MPF

    I assume by “b*tchslap” you mean voice shrill invective until the cows come home, including that useful and effective tool – the dreaded protest march – and the even more harrowing nightmare, a resolution by the UN General Assembly. How would that be any different from the present?

  10. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    Hey, Whopperman, you smarmy little a$$hole with a smarmy name, the Japanese government was given fair warning and they chose not to surrender. The estimate of American casualties storming the beaches of Japan was 100,000+. I’ll live in moral peace with Truman’s decision. The Japanese have forgiven us. Your inference that it’s payback time makes you a vile creep. Now, please disappear with your with your link to your pathetic little blog and be a bug on someone else’s windshield.

  11. Ptolemy Avatar
    Ptolemy

    Thank you MPF. Its always good when people put Mr Canada back in perspective. He wants so badly to be as relevant as an American. And Whopper Man, let me introduce you to Franky and Michael as well as Robert. You four are gonna get along just fine.

  12. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    There are idiots who continue to believe that the little muslims wouldn’t use a nuke on us. That is false–if the muslims were smart enough they would–they will steal technology that is necessary and they will try to use nukes–on us.
    “Allah made annihilating the infidels one of his steadfast decrees. According to the [divine] natural law of alternating fortunes, Allah said: ‘[Allah will] obliterate the infidels’ [Qur’an 3:141]. It inevitably follows that this wisdom [of the decree] has become the way according to which life is lived

  13. Ptolemy Avatar
    Ptolemy

    Its believable that the US would be hit first. Without the US who is left to stand up for Isreal? The book of Revelations never looked so relevant as it does today with all the world circling around the chosen people literally willing them to surrender and die. I’m not religious by the way I just spent 12 years in a Baptist school. The terrorists would then be free to destroy Isreal at their leisure because there won’t be any effort on the part of Euro-Canada to stand up for what’s right and defend them.

  14. onecent Avatar
    onecent

    …..and our government hasn’t done nearly enough to reduce it.
    What’s really scary, they only have to be lucky once. All you have to ask yourself is would they do it if they could and will they do it when they can? Sadly, we still have so many idiots not seeing 9/11 in a context of ever more violent assaults happening in increments over decades.
    Iran needs to be dealt with for starters.

  15. Harry Avatar
    Harry

    I have to disagree with Robert. The US is a prime target. Israel is not as likely to suffer a terrorist nuking by the Arabs because, contra Robert, it would be a lot harder to get the device into Israel. The US is a large country with porous borders. Israel is neither, and because it’s perpetually on a war footing there’s a much higher chance of interception even if the weapon were successfully smuggled into that nation.
    It’s also worth noting that there’s no doubt at all that the Israelis would respond to a nuclear attack in kind. The US would not do so.

  16. Chrees Avatar
    Chrees

    Jeff, let me know where your next job is so I’ll clear the area before you get there. OK, bad joke…
    This is scary stuff, and as others have mentioned here, I’m concerned with what our response would be. VD Hanson had a column a couple of months back that troubled me and I thought not up to his usual level…but he was struggling with what the proper response would be to a nuclear attack on US soil. I don’t see a mutually assured destruction policy plausible… Just rambling here and trying to fathom something like this happening.

  17. John Avatar
    John

    The only real way to deter a nuclear terrorist attack is to explain the response BEFORE it happens. If Bin Laden or whoever thinks the US will just step up its conventional war efforts, he will probably not hesitate to use a nuke.
    However, if the US government told the world exactly, to the T, what we would do, there would be no such problem. Uncertainty is the bane of deterrence; Bin Laden must believe nuking New York will result in the destruction of Mecca and Medina within 1 hour of the terrorist weapon’s detonation.
    On the bright side, nuclear weapons are a little easier to track than the government lets on. The government spent decades figuring out how to find advanced Soviet warheads; a primitive or old device would only be easier to spot. The radiation is visible to spy satellites– though nukes can be made in secret via heavy shielding in an underground facility… that can’t be maintained in transit.

  18. Robert McClelland Avatar
    Robert McClelland

    Without the US who is left to stand up for Isreal?
    Oh come on. Even if New York were wiped completely off the map by a terrorist nuke, it wouldn’t destroy America. So that reasoning is ridiculous.

  19. Robert McClelland Avatar
    Robert McClelland

    I assume by “b*tchslap” you mean
    Complete sanctioning and isolation of the US by the governments of the world. America might be the strongest economically and militarily, but it couldn’t stand up to a world united against it.

  20. Robert McClelland Avatar
    Robert McClelland

    I suggest we do it first–nuke Mecca and Medina.
    I suggest you take your bigoted spewing to another blog where bigoted spewing is appreciated and encouraged.

  21. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Yeesh. Rahbert on the Middle East. Good lord.
    Oh come on. Even if New York were wiped completely off the map by a terrorist nuke, it wouldn’t destroy America. So that reasoning is ridiculous. If NY were destroyed by a nuclear weapon: (1) the economy would be in a shambles, (2) the country would be in pretty serious disarray, (3) the whole political system would probably get pretty screwy – and Rahbert thinks the US would be out there worrying about Israel. Gads.
    In order to use in on America, it would involve a higher risk of it being seized and subsequently neutralized. Therefore the best way to ensure it was not wasted would be to use it in a country where it was easier to get it to. And that would be Israel. Rahbert doesn’t know Israel very well at all. As someone noted earlier, porous borders are not the same level of problem in Israel as here. Plus the level of security/scrutiny in Israel is muchhigher.
    What Rahbert is also missing is the difficulty in using a nuclear weapon on Israel. It’s a small country and (i) the blowback on the neighboring states would be huge, and (ii) other than maybe places in the Negev (like Beersheba) which aren’t much in the way of targets, there’s not much in the way of targets. I doubt they would hit Jerusalem (Al-Aksa/Dome of the Rock are there), Tel Aviv (Jaffa is side-by-side), the north (there goes the agricultural portion of the Palestinian state the users would want) it’s just too small, and a nuclear weapon would render a replacement Palestinian state a pretty miserable place, indeed.

  22. Cauthon Avatar
    Cauthon

    Robert…you are wrong. What keeps America from unleashing the full arsenal of democracy is America. It is the desire to tread a higher path that keeps us from indiscriminate slaughter in Iraq and elsewhere. Everybody in the world knows this, regardless of the poses and the rhetoric of countries such as Canada and France.
    Sanctioning America? Who would that hurt? We have plenty of land and plenty of money. If need be, we could stop importing everything, stop exporting anything, set up ad hoc manufacturing and agriculture industries to deal with the shortages, and the only thing that would happen is that Walmart would no longer be able to sell at those low low prices. A war-time economic model of vast government and private sector cooperation could be set up in days. We have the most efficient mechanism for disseminating the requisite information in the history of the world in the internet and free media, and if you thought 1943 was impressive, well… Before long, this pseudo-siege would be reversed and the sanctions would fall.
    Oh, but oil you say? We would surely run out, right? Nope. How would we get oil? Alaska, strategic reserve, and by force if necessary. Our Pacific Navy by itself is the largest Navy in the world. We have 13 nuclear-powered Carrier groups and can make many more, as needed. Britain is next with less than 5. It would be no problem at all to control almost every single waterway in the world, allowing the precious lifeblood of industry to arrive safely and consistently.
    Name one other country that has the logistical capacity, the number of strategically placed bases, the firepower, the experience of the US. Name one that has half. We are protected by two oceans on east and west and two impotent sycophants on the north and south. We are with out a doubt the most powerful nation the planet has every seen, by an order of magnitude.
    And you are telling me that we do not use overwhelming force because of the fear of what some other country or countries would do to us? Countries like Germany that beg us not to take our troops away because it will hurt their economy? Countries like France that have to create a “Smile” campaign to save their own tourism industry from American backlash? Countries like China whose economies are propped up only because of the unquenchable American appetite? Countries like Russia whose placement in the G8 is honorary, where the life expectancy and birthrates are going down? Countries like Canada who have enjoyed unprecedented peace and prosperity due to their fortuitous geographic proximity to the mighty US?
    No, I believe that we are humane for reasons other than these. We are humane because we have restraint. If the terrorists remove that restraint, then all is lost…for them.

  23. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Well, Rahbert, you seem to spew a lot of your anti-America bigotry here–why don’t you take your America hatred,terrorist asskissing, to some Canadian site–they are more terrorist friendly over there.
    I was not being a bigot–just using common sense.

  24. MPF Avatar
    MPF

    “[America] couldn’t stand up to a world united against it.”
    This is a somewhat tangential and vacuous point to disagree upon because the premise is remote, to say the least, but you assume a global unity that simply does not exist, even with the lightening rod of anti-Americanism. Certainly substantial majorities in most Western European countries (and many other countries) would agree, and, I suspect, the marchers and boycotters would be out in force, but your transnational sentiments (and, by your tone, sentimentality) notwithstanding, realpolitik would rule the day. Such effective “global” furor on this scale is unsustainable at present. Indeed, if anything, “internationalists” (and Canadian nationalists, for that matter) have the US to thank for whatever unity they currently have. Absent the virulence of anti-Americanism they’d have little else ’round which to rally, save for the recently-petering out, ironically-dubbed anti-globalism movement.
    N.B. – another fatal flaw in your assumption is that boycotts and/or sanctions would harm the US more than themselves. The US carries an enormous trade deficit, meaning, obviously, that it buys more than it sells. Thus, any sanctions regime would have more impact on the countries that desperately depend on American consumerism to continue growth (e.g., Japan, China and the rest of the developing Asian countries). The American economy, due to its purer capitalist nature and relatively ruthless flexibility, is better equipped to adapt to geopolitical vicissitudes than the more ossified and statist European models.

  25. Whopper Meister Avatar
    Whopper Meister

    Well well, Charlie – quite the intellectual arguments you’re making. Intellect, heh – that’s a dirty word for you isn’t it?
    Bomb ’em! Bring it on!
    The Daily Whopper – Exposing the lies of those richer and more powerful than you and I

  26. MPF Avatar
    MPF

    That’s “lightning” not “lightening” and “countries who choose boycotting and/or instituting sanctions” not “boycotts and/or sanctions” – my apologies for not using Mr. Jarvis’ new preview feature better (and for staying at the office entirely too late).

  27. deuce Avatar
    deuce

    mcclelland in context:
    “fuck the jews”
    http://myblahg.blogspot.com/2004/05/fuck-jews.html

  28. cj Avatar
    cj

    The fact of the matter is that all those “soccer moms” and “security moms” and 99 percent of Americans would DEMAND that the US gov’t retaliate if a nuke went off in America OR Israel (we are, after all, very pragmatic — what the hell have we invested billions in our military if they won’t DEFEND us?).
    It would be a very short “glory” for whomever chose to instigate such an attack against us — and I have no doubt that they know it — i.e., it would be a fringe movement who would consider it, and I daresay they are “circumscribed” by more politically-aware terrorist movements.

  29. Robert McClelland Avatar
    Robert McClelland

    the blowback on the neighboring states would be huge,
    As if people who are willing to blow themselves up for a cause are really going to worry about that.
    And Israel is so porous that hundreds of suicide bombers have been able to operate at will.

  30. Robert McClelland Avatar
    Robert McClelland

    anti-America bigotry
    There is no such thing. That is just a term coined by whiny twats like you who like to dish out criticism of other countries but can’t take criticism of their own country. Now shut the puter off at the internet cafe and hike your butt back to your trailer where you belong.

  31. tim appelo Avatar
    tim appelo

    Cf. the frightening prediction in John McPhee’s long-ago The Curve of Binding Energy: that terrorists might easily use a crude nuke in a shopping bag to bring down both towers of the World Trade Center–

  32. Andi Avatar
    Andi

    If these terrorists with nukes are using the al qaida modus operandi they will have the attack planned and coordinated well and most certainly will try to hit MANY targets in the US simultaneously.
    They know from their experience with the Twin Towers/Pentagon that our response will be greater than they anticipate. They never expected daisy cutters in Tora Bora, they thought they would make a stand against the infidel in Afghanistan and defeat the US there just as they did the Soviets. They thought jihadists would arrive from all over the muslim world to defend the Taliban, and they were wrong.
    I think they realize now that if you strike the king you MUST kill him.
    So if they do strike with nukes it will be very very bad, much worse even than losing Manhattan.

  33. Walt Avatar
    Walt

    I would suggest as a potential target for a small nuclear device (roughly around 1.5-3.0 KT, so called suitcase nuke, 54 of which are missed from Russian inventory couple of years ago – highly compact, but practically undetectable because of its very nature – undercritical variant) some high-rise building in Wall Street area. Time of detonation – 05:55, when the previous operational day already finished, but backup on the local servers didn’t started yet. As a result all the electronic devices inside radius of 20-25 miles will be completely destroyed and financial information of all transactions on the stock market will be erradicated. That would be an effect…
    And regarding mutual destruction doctrine… It worked with Russians for years, why not now, with Usama? Why not tell to the entire world that we will nuke Mecca, Medina and after that – every last mosque in the world if there will be a single terrorist act on the US soil…

  34. Tom Grey - Liberty Dad Avatar
    Tom Grey – Liberty Dad

    Jeff, it is “too late”.
    My own odds of a nuke strike (Tel Aviv? Moscow? Mumbai? Miami?) in the next 4 years depends on who is elected:
    Bush – 10%
    Kerry – 40%
    Please THINK about this issue, and consider writing your OWN odds. The race is on: democracy in the ME (maybe Sudan AND Iran need military induced regime change) before … or after the terrorists get nukes from Iran (or somewhere).
    If Israel gets WMDd, I expect a big increase in the odds that Mecca & Medina go mushroom.

  35. Alasdair Avatar
    Alasdair

    Surely the chances would be higher if Bush is re-elected, because he’s likely to continue with more of the policy’s that drive ordinary people in the middle east into the arms of the terrorists!

  36. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Jeff:
    I

  37. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Michael, did you sound like this in 2001? “I

  38. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Oh, and Robert –
    As if people who are willing to blow themselves up for a cause are really going to worry about that. And Israel is so porous that hundreds of suicide bombers have been able to operate at will.
    (a) it’s not “hundreds,” and they’ve caught plenty of them – it’s still tougher there than it is here.
    (b) individual people are willing to blow themselves up, but that’s a non sequiteur – the states who back them aren’t willing to destroy themselves (or render parts of their countries uninhabitable. Plus, it’s one thing for them to kill ISraelis, it’s another to blow up Al-Aksa, or Jaffa, or render huge swaths of the land uninhabitable – remeber, they’re supposedly fighting to liberate the land from the Jews.

  39. Matthew Goggins Avatar
    Matthew Goggins

    The nuclear bomb scenario is frightening. A nuclear attack would be devastating in many ways.
    However, while such an attack is possible in theory, it is also unlikely as long as we keep our guard up.
    The horrible nature of a nuclear explosion would force any nuclear jihadis to maintain the highest level of secrecy. Only the most fanatical and trustworthy terrorists could be allowed to know anything at all sbout the attack. But the logistics of smuggling, moving, arming, targeting, and detonating a nuclear bomb are very tricky and would involve at least a couple of dozen people to various degrees. For example, to store and move a nuclear bomb would require at least four people. Each person with knowledge of the plot exponentially increases the risk of violating the secrecy of the plan.
    But the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have alerted us to the willingness of our enemies to indiscriminately murder as many people as they can. So we are all looking out for suspicious activity, and any super-super-secret terrorist plot has now become very risky and difficult to pull off.
    This may be the reason the White House recently leaked the name of an Al-Qaeda operative, Mohammad Naeen Noor Khan. On the surface, it was a terrible error to make. Khan was captured in July by Pakistan, and was acting as a mole, allowing us to monitor over a dozen members of Al Qaeda. But the leak forced the relevant authorities to scramble to make premature arrests, and some terrorists were able to escape.
    On the other hand, if Al Qaeda were plotting a major attack to disrupt the November 2nd elections, then the leak was a great way to disrupt their plans. The terrorists – besides being forced to move around and take extra precautions – they now have to factor in worries about some persons being moles. Any calculations they had made about the relative risks versus rewards of various operations would no longer be valid. If anyone were in the final stages of a nuclear bomb plot, they would have to re-evaluate everything and very likely put the final execution on hold.
    But hopefully, my speculation, and Nicholas Kristoff’s column, will become quaint historical artifacts when we find out a few years from now that the terrorists were never close to getting a nuclear bomb. That is the hardest part, after all.

  40. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    jeremy in nyc
    >

  41. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    jeremy in nyc:
    Sorry I’m not sufficiently prone to hysteria, like you and the rest of the doomsday fanatics here. You know, in a foxhole guys who shriek “we’re all gonna die” sometimes get a bullet in the head. Why don

  42. Gax Avatar
    Gax

    Re: “Sanctions” against the US
    As “cool” as that sounds to those who hate how we do things, it’s not feasible for the world. Not only is the US the largest economy, we are also the largest importer of goods around the world. Nearly every foreign company that sells goods outside of their own borders sells at least one product in the US.
    For better or worse, we have become Rome. We cannot be ignored or brushed aside.

  43. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Michael: When Jeff wrote “In his next column, he’ll tell us how to reduce that risk. If it’s not too late” I don’t think that means it might be too late to stop an attack before the next column – I think it means it its not too late to reduce the risk. So I don’t think being concerned about this is “hysteria” – even Kristof only puts his estimation of the risk over 10 years at 20%. This is hysteria?
    This is what is irritating me about your posts (and I admit I’m reacting strongly) is that people raise the issue so that the risk (which I think is real, if not imminent) can be dealt with. Your entire response seems to be “You whiny cowards! Shut up and stop freaking out! And anyone saying there’s a risk is hysterical!” That’s not a response to anything anyone said – it’s just some kind of weird chest-beating which adds nothing.
    Frankly, I’m not worried that anything’s going to happen soon. I’m worried that if we don’t take steps to addresss this, then someday down the road, something will happen. Which was the point of Kristof’s article. Which is why your reaction to non-existent hysteria is all the more puzzling.

  44. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    jeremy in nyc:
    Thank you for a more levelheaded, reasonable and responsive post.
    I do think you

  45. J_Crater Avatar
    J_Crater

    Jolly. Let’s take to fanciful dreams of death.
    Why not nuke Fort Know as Goldfinger tried in the movie of the same name. How about nuking Omaha NE as CBS did in a TV special so many years ago. What about Kansas City as in the “The Day After”. Moscow and NYC in “Failsafe”. Maybe Las Vegas ala Stephen King or “War Games”.
    All this reminds me of the SNL skit “What if Napoleon had a B-52 ?” .. he wins at Waterloo.

  46. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Michael: No, thank you for a more levelheaded, reasonable and responsive post. This is the kind of discussion I enjoy.
    I guess we disagree on the interpretation of what Jeff said. You ask “Why would Kristof tell us in his next column how to reduce the risk of nuclear attack if it is already too late to reduce the risk?” Kristof never said it might not be too late; Jeff did. So Jeff may think Kristof’s solutions are to little, too late.
    I do think any of this can be overstated; but I also think it’s important to address it now, rather than when we do hit a crisis. I don’t think we’re actually in disagreement on this one.
    As for your prediction – I have no idea whether I’ll agree, but I’m not sure why you assume I won’t.

  47. Paul H. Avatar
    Paul H.

    Matthew Goggins: good post. Agree that a terrorist nuke is currently unlikely, for the reasons you stated.
    If it (a single, relatively small, nuke detonation in a big US city) did happen, I don’t think we would lash out at every Muslim nation. I do think we would be inclined to take out every possible Iranian and North Korean nuclear development site, either with conventional or nuclear attack. I would like to think that this word has already been privately passed to the respective leaderships of each of these countries.
    A lot would depend on the circumstances and any evidence (if it survived — there won’t be any forensic work on auto part serial numbers, presumably, as in the 93 World Trade Center rental van bomb).
    However, the place to set off a single nuke would be in DC, while Congress is in session and the prez is in the White House. If they can decapitate the political leadership, then they’d have a chance at inducing real paralysis. A good reason to eventually revive the 24 hour USAF airborne command center flights (suspended in 91).
    More likely than these is a “dirty bomb”. Equivalent economic impact as from a nuke, and the perpetrators might figure it wouldn’t reach the level of provoking a nuclear retaliation. However, I think we’d be able to do nuclear forensic analysis of the fallout and then try to determine its origin (the way it happened in in the Clancy novel).
    If it proved to be of (for example) Iranian origin, surely there would be a declaration of war by us, unless the Iranians immediately agreed to a Libyan style nuclear disarmament.

  48. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    jeremy in nyc:
    >”…I also think it’s important to address it now, rather than when we do hit a crisis. I don’t think we’re actually in disagreement on this one.

  49. Reid Avatar
    Reid

    I think the risk of a 10 kT or greater yield bomb going off in the middle of Manhattan is negligible for at least 20 years or more. Far more likely is a dirty bomb or a nuke in a container in the harbor. We are in a race against time, though, to tame the ME before the hostiles acquire the sophistication to make easily transportable atomics. That is another reason the liberation of Iraq was so important.
    And, Whopper Man, far more Chinese died (cruelly and with great suffering and humiliation) in the Rape of Nanjing by the Japanese Army than Japanese died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined due to American A-bombs. So, cry me a river, jerkface.

  50. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Michael – while I think this thread has essentially ended, just wanted to say thanks as well.