Ten Dangerous Scenarios

Attack a nuclear plant

Cripple the
Transportation System

Destroy the
Fort Peck Dam

Detonate a suitcase bomb

Attack the Alaska pipeline

Contaminate a ventilation system

Cut off power to
a major city

Shoot down
Air Force One

Attack a chemical factory

Destroy a stadium

>> See the entire list <<

Scenario: Nuclear Suitcase Bomb

Scenario

Detonate a nuclear suitcase bomb in any major U.S. city or near any high-value target.

Description

A nuclear "suitcase bomb" is simply a nuclear bomb made small enough to transport in a convenient package like a suitcase or a backpack. It is easy to imagine a suitcase bomb being carried into a city in a car trunk, or even a small airplane (for an aerial burst over the city).

To make a nuclear bomb small enough to fit into a suitcase, the yield would be limited to somewhere between 1 and 10 kilotons. For comparison, the yeild of Timothy McVeigh's truck bomb was on the order of 2 or 3 tons of explosives. A suitcase bomb would easily be 300 to 3,000 times more powerful.

Damage Potential

Detonated from a small airplane flying over a city, a suitcase bomb would level an area 0.5 to 1 mile in diameter, and cause extensive damage another mile out. There will also be damage from radiation, fallout and EMP effects.

Monetary damage caused by such a bomb in any major city (Washington DC, NY, LA, etc.) would obviously be astronomical. For example, a detonation near Times Square, in the financial district of New York city, near the Mall in Washington DC, or a similar high-density/high-value target could conceivably destroy a trillion dollars or more in real estate and kill tens of thousands of people.

The larger problem is the loss of key people. If detonated at the right place and time in Washington, DC, a suitcase bomb could completely decapitate the U.S. government by taking out the president, vice president, congress, the cabinet, etc. By detonating it near the pentagon at the right time, it could decapitate the military. In the financial district of NY, it could decapitate financial markets.

Steps We Are Taking

On March 1, 2002, the U.S. government announced for the first time the creation of a "shadow government", working secretly in bunkers outside Washington DC. According to the Washington Post, "President Bush has dispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time long-standing plans to ensure survival of federal rule after catastrophic attack on the nation's capital. Execution of the classified "Continuity of Operations Plan" resulted not from the Cold War threat of intercontinental missiles, the scenario rehearsed for decades, but from heightened fears that the al-Qaeda terrorist network might somehow obtain a portable nuclear weapon, according to three officials with firsthand knowledge."

This is a good start, but only a start. Tens of thousands of elected officials, high-level appointees, department heads, advisors and bureaucrats work within a few blocks of one another in Washington DC. It is unlikely that the government could resume operations with all of these people dead.

Potential Solutions

The most obvious solution is to make the development of suitcase bombs impossible by totally controlling the flow of nuclear bomb-making materials and related technologies. Given the number of countries that have demonstrated nuclear capabilities, including India, Pakistan, Russia and China, as well as those suspected to be working on bombs, including Iran, Iraq and Korea, it is very unlikely that control of materials and technology is possible.

The next obvious solution is to prevent the movement of a suitcase bomb into the U.S. Given how porous U.S. borders are (look at how easily tons of illegal drugs move into the U.S. every day as an example), this solution also seems impossible.

Given the environment presented by the previous two points, then the only possible solution is to assume that the attack will happen and attempt to limit the damage. The way to limit the damage is to spread things out. For example, a suitcase bomb in a typical suburban landscape would do far less damage than the same attack in Times Square. Economic pressure and general human tendencies probably make the elimination of high-density urban development impossible. What we can guard against in that case is decapitation. The solution involves spreading key people out to multiple sites, and hardening the structures they use. For example:

  • Having so much key financial talent located within walking distance of the New York stock exchange is a risk. These people should be distributed to many different cities.
  • In the same way, having so much key government talent in Washington DC is a risk, because it is easy to decapitate the government. A single suitcase bomb could kill the president, vice president, congress, the cabinet, and thousands of key bureaucrats. We need to spread them out as well.
  • The same can be said about the concentration of military talent at the Pentagon. It is a very large risk.
  • Many corporations suffer from the same problem, and if they are essential to the U.S. economy, then they should take steps to spread out.
Any time we cluster a large number of key people in a small area, we make the job easy for terrorists. We should eliminate these targets by spreading key personnel across the country.

Solutions include:

  1. Today's technology, which makes telecommuting, teleconferencing and video calling easy. We should make the most of this technology.
  2. Risk assesment software. Computer software can calculate and balance the risks constantly. Software can track the key people in (for example) the financial community and warn when too many key people have gathered too closely together.
  3. Secure meeting areas. For true protection, the only possibility is hardened meeting areas deep underground.
#2 and #3 above seem extreme today, I will admit. However, shoe inspections at airports would have seemed extreme prior to September 11. Today shoe inspections seem completely normal. After the first suitcase bomb explodes, #2 and #3 will no longer seem extreme. Perhaps we should take steps today rather than waiting.

See also Solutions

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