Re: Media ignores Ballistic Missle Defense.

From: Eugene Leitl (Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Mon Aug 27 2001 - 12:18:51 MDT


On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Brian D Williams wrote:

> Why is it that international drug cartels don't ship their product
> via UPS or FedX then?

Because they make many shipments, each typically many tons. It is
uneconomical, and because there would be so many drug parcels in transit
people would start screening for them. No one expects nukes in UPS parcels
so far. Actually, if I was to smuggle a set of nukes into a country, and
had not underground network of fanatics, I'd try to make contacts to the
drug cartels. Because they do it professionally, and successfully.
Assuming, they're willing to do it (unlikely, though), the probability of
detection would be very low.

> I tend to agree with you on this. Of course the first successful
> terrorist attack with a weapon of mass destruction will probably be
> it's last since undoubtably the retaliation will mean complete
> elimination of said group.

I don't care about the group (assuming, they're nice enough to advertize
their name and their location), and the group doesn't care about being
rational, otherwise it wouldn't do something as foolish. I care about the
people nuked.

> Getting an airborne form of anthrax is not easy, the Japanese cult
> Aum Shinrikyo despite being technically very sophisticated failed
> in it's attempts. Good luck playing with VX.

Aum S. were amateurs. The preparation (rather weak agent as a rather
dilute acetonitrile solution) and the mode of deployment (slowly leaking
plastic baggie) indicate that they had really no clue. Which is a good
thing. However, gambling on continuation of your lucky streak is not good
statistics.

They could have achieved two orders of magnitude more victims merely by a
different mode of deployment, by aerosoling the the solution with a
low-temp pyrocharge. Many highschool students will arrive at this
conclusion without prompting. By synchronous deployment in strategic
locations they would have trapped the people underground. In this case,
very few people would have made it out there alive.

> Terrorists no, rogue nations yes.

Well, I'm not willing the take the risk rogue nations are that stupid.
Besides, I'm not sure it makes sense to differentiate rogue nations from
terrorists, because a dictator has far too much to lose than an anonymous
group that is not in control.

> I have stated a number of times that the system we were discussing
> was not designed for either superpowers nor terrorists, but rogue
> nations.

Very well, I've stated a number of times that the umbrella will cause
other superpowers to increase their arsenal, and modify that arsenal,
resulting in more more difficult to intercept nukes. This is not a neutral
side effect, and needs to be taken into the calculation. Even if you're
not directly protecting yourself against other superpowers.

> Again the system is not designed to thwart terrorists, except those
> that head a rogue nation. Whether or not we successfully identify
> the terrorists in you theoretical attack would remain to be seen.

I very much hope that my attack will remain theoretical. And you seem not
to understand that you're thinking rationally, but no rational person will
nuke you. These is not the folks you have to be wary of.

> You couldn't even begin to successfully alert a population in 18
> minutes, much less get them to move anywhere unless they were
> completely prepared.

Technically, in the year 2001 you can alert the entire population in
seconds, on a rather modest budget. For starters, a cellphone with added
functionality and NEMP/jam detector will do. Training is another issue,
which, I believe, I already mentioned.

> >So, how many shelters can you build for 300 gigabucks, or so?
>
> Not enough by far.

Well, that's what goobvarmint is for, to create regulations that every new
built house needs to have a shelter of an approved design. These are
incremental costs, and as a side effect you get shelters with very short
average distances, so that you can react within a few minutes forewarning.

> There you go, your attack by your terrorists, using your scenario
> isn't even worth building a defense against.

Um, you have a singularly selective perception.

> My mistake, when I think of ICBM I think fusion not fission, so we
> don't even need to build bunkers.

Small portable devices will be weak, dirty fission, maybe boosted fission.
State of the art nuclear devices should not be on the free market. Rogue
states don't do fusion, for the same reason they don't do ICBMs. Good
physicists and technicians are a lot scarcer and much less expendable than
fanatics.

> A smart terrorist would place his bomb in the largest shelter he
> could find.

Since shelters are distributed (well, they have be, because otherwise the
mean average distance would be too long), and he would have to detonate
his weak nuke underground, the amounts of survivors would be maximum in
this case. If you have limited resources, you go for an airburst, which
will profit from the nuke being dirty, if not salted. Much nastier than a
high flux, which they won't get, anyway.

> But this is again besides the point, the system we were discussing
> was to defend against a limited number of rogue state launched
> ICBM's not a terrorist attack. This does not make it useless.

If you say so.

-- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a>
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