PeteCamp wrote:A nuclear detonation on American soil would certainly turn our lives upside down, at least for the foreseeable future, but unlike a full-scale nuclear exchange, it wouldn't be the end of all life as we know it.
The death toll from a dirty bomb would likely be less (much less) than the death toll on 9/11. And many of those deaths would occur years after the actual attack. The biggest threat from a dirty bomb attack is the threat to our liberties from a terrified population willing to give up any and all freedoms for the promise of security.
Granted it would certainly not end all life. And doubtless it would not only turn our lives upside down, but those of the whole world. However, you do know that there are plans to "respond in kind" to attacks by WMD's? No one talked about it much when we went into Iraq, but these are long-standing plans. Only one thermonuclear attack
could trigger a limited or even full-scale response on someone.
And even if we didn't respond in kind, what you describe as the threat from a dirty bomb would surely happen if a thermonuclear device were involved - perhaps on an even grander scale. Would it not?
From everything I've read, most planned responses are "measured," meaning we're not likely to launch 2,000+ nuclear warheads in response to a single terrorist attack, even if that terrorist attack kills a million people. Certainly, a "measured" response COULD escalate into a full-scale exchange (for example, if we retaliated against a country that had a defense treaty with a nuclear power), but more likely than not, we'd decimate our attackers (assuming we knew who they were) with one or two strategic strikes.
Keep in mind that a terrorist attack isn't likely to utilize a thermonuclear (fusion) bomb. More than likely, it would be a simple fission bomb like the ones we dropped on Japan.
If you want to explore a very frightening potential threat, look into the threat from electromagnetic pulse (EMP). If a terrorist state were able to detonate a 100-500 kt nuclear warhead 400 miles above Kansas (most likely by launching a missile from a cargo ship off the U.S. coast), it could theoretically knock out not only the entire U.S. power grid but all unshielded solid-state electronics from central Canada to central Mexico. Because there haven't been any nuclear air bursts since the advent of solid-state electronics, nobody knows just how bad the devastation would be, but based on government estimates, the worst case scenario would render pretty much all electronics, including most post-1980 automobiles, inoperable; destroy all communications (except for some old tube-style ham radios); and result in the death of 90% of the U.S. population within one year. How's that for a spooky bedtime story?
Fortunately, no rogue nations or terrorist organizations (as far as we know) yet have the delivery systems necessary put a sea-launched missile into the stratosphere over the central United States. And fortunately, none of them (as far as we know) are close to building a nuclear weapon of sufficient yield (5-25 times the size of the Nagasaki bomb) needed to create maximum damage. Unfortunately, the U.S. government hasn't been making good use of the window of opportunity created by the terrorists' slow progress.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, pick up a copy of
One Second After by William Forstchen. It's a fictional account of the potential aftermath of a worst case scenario EMP attack. Be forewarned, it is NOT a "feel good" book.
