Terrorist with nukes - is this the scary thing?
5 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Saturday, March 17 at Saturday, March 17, 2007.
I got some interesting responses to my post below, thanks to some links from higher powers. A bunch of it was just crazy talk ("Large parts of English and European cities look a lot like Islamabad", or the even more hyperventilative "In 10 years, France, Germany, Italy, Holland and others may have large Islamist blocs controlling the government, and it will be impossible to control gangs of Muslim ruffians who seek to impose Sharia law"). Do these people ever actually leave their houses and look at the world around them?
There was one pretty solid theme coming through that I did want to write more about though - and that was the idea that although the threat is indeed relatively small, the chance of a nuclear armed terror attack makes it much more imminent and civilisation-threatening.
The risk here is obvious. And I totally agree with the assessment of the risk - I just don't think that the appropriate response to the risk is freaking out about existential threats to our civilisation. It seems like a concerted effort by security services (including literally tracking every single nuclear weapon in the world - if that isn't being done already) would be enough to deal with the problem.
There is also a few specific questions that I have about the terrorists-with-nukes assumption. Anybody who knows more about this, I'd love to hear your responses:
- Isn't it really easy to track nuclear weapons? I remember reading that they have a very distinctive "signature" that satellite sensing can easily spot - meaning that movements of live nuclear weapons around the world is almost certainly being monitored to a far greater degree than we think.
- Nuclear weapons, once exploded, also have a distinctive "signature" that can trace them back to their country of origin. If it is clear to nuclear countries that a bomb from their country will be responded to with the same total destruction - whether or not is it launched by their own armies or by random terrorist groups - then shouldn't the conventional idea of nuclear deterrence still work?
- Terrorist groups aren't very good at what they do. Everyone knows a hundred different ways that a well organised group of 100 homocidal bastards could wreak chaos, death and havoc on any country they choose. Why hasn't this happened? A good chunk of this must be down to sheer incompetence on behalf of terrorist groups. The obvious question is: Is there a terrorist organisation who have their shit together enough to pull off something this big without being caught in the process?
There was one pretty solid theme coming through that I did want to write more about though - and that was the idea that although the threat is indeed relatively small, the chance of a nuclear armed terror attack makes it much more imminent and civilisation-threatening.
The risk here is obvious. And I totally agree with the assessment of the risk - I just don't think that the appropriate response to the risk is freaking out about existential threats to our civilisation. It seems like a concerted effort by security services (including literally tracking every single nuclear weapon in the world - if that isn't being done already) would be enough to deal with the problem.
There is also a few specific questions that I have about the terrorists-with-nukes assumption. Anybody who knows more about this, I'd love to hear your responses:
- Isn't it really easy to track nuclear weapons? I remember reading that they have a very distinctive "signature" that satellite sensing can easily spot - meaning that movements of live nuclear weapons around the world is almost certainly being monitored to a far greater degree than we think.
- Nuclear weapons, once exploded, also have a distinctive "signature" that can trace them back to their country of origin. If it is clear to nuclear countries that a bomb from their country will be responded to with the same total destruction - whether or not is it launched by their own armies or by random terrorist groups - then shouldn't the conventional idea of nuclear deterrence still work?
- Terrorist groups aren't very good at what they do. Everyone knows a hundred different ways that a well organised group of 100 homocidal bastards could wreak chaos, death and havoc on any country they choose. Why hasn't this happened? A good chunk of this must be down to sheer incompetence on behalf of terrorist groups. The obvious question is: Is there a terrorist organisation who have their shit together enough to pull off something this big without being caught in the process?
Hey there Tom
I agree with most of what you say.
Security agencies around the world are surely on their toes and working tirelessly to prevent another 9/11 scenario. But which brings us to the point that 9/11 DID happen.
Al-Qeada had enough of its "shit together" to plan and execute those attacks on American soil. That is just very scary.
One other point is the whole way you have written your post. It seems to make this a Islamic terrorists VS Western Civilization. Which it is to a large extent. But you didnt mention the efforts (or lack of it) of the Moderate Islamic world who DO co-exist with "the West".
There IS a lot to be learned from the Islamic way of life and we shouldnt present our views as even suggesting that one or the other 'way of life' will eventually 'win the war'.
I hope this made sense!
I would really love it if the crazy, hyperventilative doomsday predictors who believe will all be overrun by crazy knife-wielding muslims who want to impose sharia law, cover up our women and torch our cars would relax...
i dont understand why we even need to describe regular people as "moderate muslims" as if "moderate" is some sort of tag that needs to be attached to make sure we don't consider them part of the grand set of evildoers that resides in the muslim world.
Perhaps we can now start labelling "moderate" christians as opposed to the insane ones that masterminded a completely pointless and now doomed invasion of Iraq, and a similarly doomed invasion of Afghanistan? Sure they may not have done it in the name of religious fundamentalism but they are no less insane.
And it's funny how people start saying "oh you think small numbers of dead civillians are insignificant? what if it's your family? huh? huh?" but the same people don't want to do anything about the number of people dying from smoking, road accidents and Western invasions into their countries... when all these things could be seriously prevented.
What if those families at Haditha were your familes? Huh? Oh wait, that's impossible... they're muslims aka. "The Evil ones" and we better assume they weren't those "moderate" muslims either... imagine, they named their children Osama, death to them all.
Sorry about the cynical and angry post but I get tired of neo conservatives whipping themselves into a frenzy as an excuse to create an Us-and-them scenario as a precursor for more "preemptive" bloodshed. I agree that the nuclear threat is very real but that should be dealt with in a smarter way (than full-scale war).
May I also suggest that the way you oppose calling Muslims - 'moderates'; lets also not label everyone who worries about nuclear threats as a 'neo-conservative'.
As soon you group people you take away from them their space to argue easily.
Not everyone who supported the war is a neo-con; exactly like everyone who opposes it is not a sissy who does not worry about terrorism.
If there is only one religion that stands out; although with a tiny percentage of the population; as bent on using its religion as an excuse to kill and maim across the Globe - it is Islam.
Over 90% of the Muslims don't want that; but the rest do or appease.
There is other forms of fundamentalism: Neo-con is one; Chinese nationalism which has decimated tibetan culture is another; N. Korean starving its own people it also another.
They are all important in their own right and should be fretted about. So should be terrorism. That does not make me a neo-con - and we should avoid such generalizations.
Summary:
- Terrorism, like others is an important issue and should be taken seriously
terrorism should be taken seriously but only in the context of other attrocities happening around the globe. an independent organisation estimated that 655,000 people have died in iraq as a direct or indirect result of the war. how many 9/11s is that? what about sudan? what about poverty in africa? is there any reason why we should be focusing on the war of terror in light of all these other issues?
Here's a few questions on my mind:
What exactly is the goal of the "War on Terror"? That's the the Key performance indicator here? When will we know that the war has achieved it's purpose, and more importantly how? And what is the definition of terror? Is it unified among all cuontries? Is there a clear distiction between what constitutes as a terrorist act and what doesn't?
And if the goal is to eradicate all extremists then is the war the only way to go? is it there no alternative? is there no complimentary strategy other than war?
I agree with you tom, it is not a threat. And as for the nukes, i don't think any muslim country or muslim group has the capability to use weapons of mass destruction without intervention. It's just not gona happen! The "West" cannot be desrtoyed at one go, so once WMD are used in an attack on one part of the world, the rest will respond to stop it - most likely by using WMD against the attacker, and that will be the end of the attacker. It's this clear chain reaction that is why no nukes have not been fired so far, because it would be the end for who ever fired them.