Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Doomsday Scenario: A nuke in a major world city.









   I got to thinking the other day of global doomsday scenarios.

   Yeah, I'm that miserable.

   And I'm not talking ancient Mayan calender 2012 galactic alignment bullshit either. If this world goes belly up, it'll be entirely our own doing. Asteroid impacts and super volcanoes have a habit of taking too long. And let's face it, doomsday forecasting is a pretty common hobby these days. Especially in Western economies where we're all looking around and wondering what the fuck happened? Europe and the US are going through an existential crisis right now. With 50 million people on food stamps in the US and the Euro currency on the brink of implosion, it's logical that there are a whole lot more plebs willing to wander outside their comfort zones and don a figurative and funky hand drawn cardboard "The End is Nigh" sign on the doorstep of their local supermarket. The global elite stole all the cash. Tragic and criminal, but not exactly a full on Domesday Book. At least not yet.

    I've got a Doomsday scenario which I'm pretty much convinced is written into the DNA of the 21st century. It just has to happen. From the moment Oppenheimer marvelled at his 'destroyer of worlds' fireworks in the Nevadan desert in 1945 and us upright apes stumbled across fission, a Fat Man going off in a world city sometime in the future was pretty much written into the narrative. It's a simple numbers game. In the long run, the probability of nuclear disaster goes to 100%. The fewer people who have the bomb, the longer that event will take to occur. That's the whole philosophy behind the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    Postponing D-Day.

    But really, it's just a matter of where and when. That's just how we humans roll. What good is inventing a super weapon anyway if it never gets used? The time interval between Hiroshima and a rogue nuke blast in a major world city will be seen by future historians as a mere blip because once it happens, you'll be able to skip all the mediocre history in between.

    It will be the event that will change everything.

   And yeah, I'm aware that I'm sounding like the guy with the cardboard sign outside the supermarket. Doomsday forecasting is a pretty shitty enterprise because you are always wrong up until the time you are right. And by the time you are right, nobody gives a shit anymore because they're too busy looting the local 7-11 for canned goods.

   How will it happen?

   For one thing, it won't be a nation state affair. The Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) paradigm has worked out pretty well for the last sixty years and I don't see that changing anytime soon. When the event comes, it won't be the major powers trading ICBMs. At least not at the beginning. No, when the big one goes off in New York, Los Angeles or London (or, just as likely, a smaller but significant world city near you) it won't be because China or Russia sanctioned it. That'd just be insane on every body's part and invoke a "take us back to the Stone Age" war. No, when the fireworks come, the nuke will be 'rogue', some low yield, low tech piece of shit lifted from an arms depot in Pakistan, traded on the black market in some Albanian dive bar and detonated by a bunch of whack job religious freaks with some beef against your version of what god you'll meet after you die. (If any).

   Sure, the 'War on Terror' is bullshit designed to stake a claim on Mesopotamia's oil reserves but that doesn't mean there are not a whole bunch of people out there who hate the West's guts and very willing to press the red button. In fact, there's easily enough seething animosity at current Western Mid East policy that enlists no shortage of reactionaries willing to let loose the Unforgettable Fire for whatever eschatological reason you want to choose from. The 21st century corpo techno dystopia we're all living in means it's only a matter of time before nukes fall out of the hands of nation states and into the hands of a genuine Bond villain.

   Source number one?

   Pakistan.

   That's right, America's ally from hell.

   Pakistan is the country in the world right now that gets zero media attention versus its time bomb weight in international affairs. Sure, US military doctrine is all about surrounding Iran and engaging in proxy resource wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but the true energy wars are still a decade away. There's an old saying in military generalship circles when embarking on any campaign that goes "always plan for the unexpected." That sure holds true today. Especially for Western intel outfits who are scared shitless behind the scenes of the real 'event' that would make 9/11 seem minor. These days, the War on Terror is like a trench coated flasher showing up at your eight year old's birthday party. Sure it's fucked up but it isn't actual physical contact. It's only a view that results in psychological damage. Nobody actually got raped. World media right now adheres to the same consolatory 'it could be worse' paradigm. Shit's bad, we're broke and global resource wars are about to get kickstarted but so what, the supermarkets are still full and there's still gas in your car. Accept the inappropriate view of flasher dick.

    A 'rogue' nuke will shatter all that.

    Here's how.

    In the US right now, you can't get on an aeroplane without having some mouth breather feel up your nut sack for an underwear bomb. Meanwhile, uninspected cargo ships roll in and out of the world's ports everyday. Millions of steel containers get unloaded and any of them could contain the rogue nuke from hell. And the politicians don't give a shit. They're so busy fighting the last decade's "terrorism war" that they miss the point every time in favor of the ease of global commerce. Free flow of capital trumps everything. Bagging cash defeats logic. Future generations in the post apocalyptic wasteland will hate us and yeah, Mad Max II is an awesome movie but who wants to live there?

    I'm not saying enhance the police state already created for citizens since 9/11. I'm saying ditch the TSA and put all those guys to work in the world's ports. That's where the real threat lies if you really give a shit about "terrorism". In fact, getting your nutsack felt up before you board a plane is pretty much proof that the "terrorists" have already won. If you buy the idea that they "hated us for our freedom", then today's lockdown dystopia is proof that the metaphoric bad guys are already high fiving like crazy and snorting lines off hooker tits. We today have created a lockdown sci fi dystopia that would make Orwell shit bricks. The "good" cop's house got raided. The whistleblower is 'illegal'. A public assembly to redress grievances needs a 'protest permit'. Cops pepper spray your face for pitching a tent on the sidewalk because you occupy some space and wonder what the fuck is going on.



Nukes. In the 50s, they were a spectator sport. Go figure that shit.


   Let's get to the serious stuff, the rogue doomsday nuke itself.

    Pakistan sure is a fun zone if you like studying nations on the precipice of failure. But you know what the CIA, Mossad, Russia's intel services (former KGB) and the hodge podge UN (IAEA) really care about? Pakistan's nukes. So let's examine those for a minute. Pakistan is critical to Western interests because they are so scary. You remember that drooling guy on the playground when you were a kid? You know, the one who stole your lunch money? The one that was dangerous when you were nine but is now forty and living in a trailer park addicted to meth. Pakistan is that guy. Only today he's still the bully in his prime and stealing US lunch money because no Pentagon intel report knows how far the crazy will go. Obama's drone strikes on those Pashtun fucktards inside Pakistan are not exactly helping to cool shit down either. Hell, that's probably why they had no problem letting Bin Laden kick back and watch himself on TV in a compound a mile from a major military base.

    Let's face it, the West's bad guy number one was a hero over there.

    That says everything you need to know.

    Pakistan hates the US right now. And the sleazy Pakistani politicians who have a tenuous hold on the seething time bomb over there like the pay off money the US provides. The US dumps $2 billion a year into the Pakistani military and even that extortion cash buys them nothing. The Pakistani political system is barely functional. The Pakistani secret service (ISI) sponsers jihadi groups who attack US troops in Afghanistan. Those same Jihadis have infiltrated the Paki military and nobody knows how many generals are symapathetic to the fundamentalists or are fundies themselves and, for a small donation, might pull a sick day for a whole regiment while a bunch of loons drive off base with a kiloton yield sky god bomb stashed in the back of a U-Haul truck.

      Let's face it, the more Pakistan destabilizes, the more the chances of my doomsday scenario happening sky rocket. Next up, it's a simple matter of loading the bomb onto some rusty Panamanian freighter with dodgy paperwork and then it's time to set sail for a port city near you. Meanwhile, some sleazy ISI guy calls up the whack jobs on board and releases the launch codes and signs off with a friendly 'Allah Ackbar'. A week later, the vessel approaches a Western City, let's say San Francisco, and rolls into the harbor unchecked. Meanwhile, the TSA are searching your WWII vet grand dad to see if he's a closet terrorist. What kind of defense plan is that? It's so shit it's the reason I know the War on Terror is a media event and not real. If it were real, intelligent guys would be fighting it and ditching the hyperbole.

    So, D-Day happens and a square mile of San Francisco is ashes.

    What next?

    For one thing, we've just entered a Brave New World.

    Every human on the planet is shitting themselves wondering what the Pentagon's next move will be and the world's nuke arsenals are on high alert. Meanwhile, Western countries have turned overnight into police states. Only kidding, they're already police states but I'm talking full on no holes barred shit like checkpoints every where, the National Guard roaming around in military trucks doing random searches of your grandma's bra. The TSA will quadruple in size and be everywhere. X-Ray scanner vans will drive around city streets, laughing at your naked fat ass and checking what kind of merch you bought at Home Depot.

    The interesting thing is that every nuke blast is traceable to the source uranium. So within hours, the US will know it came from Pakistan. So does the US nuke Pakistan back to the Stone Age for the actions of a small bunch of organized religous freaks? That's the most interesting question in modern warfare right now. Do you punish 170 million people (most of them illiterate peasants) for the actions of a small group of Islamic crazies? How do you respond? Millions in Afghanistan and Iraq got killed or displaced because of the actions of nineteen Saudi Arabian terrorists. Hell, Bin Laden family relatives got a free flight out of the country after 9/11 when the air space was in lock down.

    At some point, you've got to admit, we today are living in a dystopian sci fi novel and nobody realizes it because there are so many ways to escape reality. It's a scary world and as the energy depletes and the population passes 7 billion, you have to switch off the TV and face some scary truths.

    That guy with the sign outside the supermarket might not be a whack job.


37 comments:

  1. So would screening incoming freight ships take care of this scenario? It would probably be expensive as hell but if it were implemented, it'd be magnitudes harder to sneak in something as heavy as a nuke.

    Also, do you think it really be that easy for a handful of radicals to get their hands on serious hardware like a nuke? Even from an extremely destabilized Pakistan? None of us can really say for sure but it's an interesting thought. Nukes ain't cheap.

    It's funny that Call of Duty 4 had the freight ship nuke combo in it's campaign except the bad guys were Russian as is required.

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  2. How do you screen incoming freight ships? How do you screen every container?

    The cost alone would be like a tax on world trade that would crash the economy.

    War Tard's article scares the shit out of me because I can't find a reason why he is wrong.

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  3. I'm afraid you're probably right Wartard, although it might not be nuclear. While most focus on big red button proliferation, as a biologist I am terrified of Bioweapons proliferation. It really is becoming quite easy and cheap to make weaponized strains of your favorite pathogens. Not to mention all the superbugs laying around in cracked vials in the former USSR. We're also getting ever closer to designer bugs that can target certain races and geographic areas. Unless humanity starts pioneering the stars or makes a serious attitude adjustment I don't see us surviving the next few centuries.

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  4. Meh.
    Fear is easy to promulgate. Nukes, bioweapons, etc. The fact is, ya gotta have a lot of highly motivated people over a substantial period with serious funds to support even a Betty Crocker version of any of these. Those types of misanthropes don't grow on trees. They are created- and a good way to do that is to wage a war none of the targets knows the reason for, using troops largely as part of a domestic jobs bill, and drones piloted from from farted up Laz-E-Boys in Clovis, New Mexico.

    We're creating them out of the very weddings and elementary school recesses we are bombing.

    Quit worrying about nukes, bio-weapons, celebrity child molesters, and the like. So far, in case you haven't noticed, the most successful attempts have come from the disaffected among us. It takes zero creativity to imagine a hundred ways that are cheaper, less detectable, more accessible, and far more horrific right now in the US than anything mentioned above. And everything they need is right next to the holiday clearance bin at Michael's Craft Store and the appliance section at Home Depot near you. If you don't understand this already, it's because you haven't obsessed about it long enough to realize it, and then obsess on it long enough to make you feel creepy.

    All the fear mongers have to do is turn a few cranks and the monkey brains take over and fork over cold, hard, cash and hard won rights to the nearest security industrialist with a good story.

    The reason we don't have crap raining down from above right now isn't because our policy makers are standing in the way of these imagined terrorists. Not unless every single solitary 'terrorist' is simply that stupid to try nukes or pipe bombs or whatever.

    If you think that ignorance on the part of a legion of terrorists is all that separates you and your bowl of Cheetos from chaos, you'd be more rational if you were positively terrified.

    Me, I simply fail to see evidence that they exist at all outside of our own creation.

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  5. 12:49 So I take it you'll be one of the guys looting the 7-11 when shit goes down since its all boring and matter of fact to you.

    WTs got a point. The lights could go out and all the cynicism in the world won't protect you from it.

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  6. 1:21 Hmm. A 7-11 has nothing of interest to me inside.

    But it's certainly not boring or matter of fact. It's simply hopelessly overblown- a bubble of your misdirected national aspirations. And yes, it is surreal to watch.

    It's so sad you are looking forward to "shit going down"- like it would make you so...un-paranoid in retrospect. Good luck with that. The past decade has been good for paranoia and related addictions. Just be ready to accept the possibility it is a bubble economy at best.

    If 'terrorists' seriously wanted to waltz in and inflict quiet, deadly mortal vengeance on Americans, there is little or nothing you could do about it- with any investment in a security apparatus. You seem like you might be attached to the idea that nukes or bio-weapons or any other over-marketed meme would be the drug of choice for a terrorist. You should fear these sorts of things the least-they are the most easily detected and prevented. The rest- well, so sorry. Not even a chance of stopping them. Yet they don't happen. Why?

    Which brings me to my point- nothing stops a legion of 'terrorists' right now, unless you make a seriously questionable assumption that every single 'terrorist" is mentally challenged, or jump to even more laughable assumptions that somehow your ever expanding 'anti-terrorism' investments are remotely related to your notable lack of foreign 'terrorist' attacks.

    The only reasonable conclusion is that they don't pose a risk that is greater than other things to worry about- like drunk drivers on a Friday night, and bad curry.

    It's not being cynical. It's merely paying attention, and being guardedly more optimistic than you.

    Nukes are far less likely, and far less harmful, than a range of other possibilities that are available to moderately intelligent miscreants right now. In fact, you might be more rationally worried about motivating one of them to violence by distributing the majority of their kid sister's body parts over a soccer field from a drone attack. Ooops.

    WT is simply exploiting a culture meme. It can happen, yes- but given enough time, a lot of other, far worse things would happen before the nukes.

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  7. Nice rebuttal, my friend.

    I consider it an honor :)

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  8. 2:04 "It can happen, yes- but given enough time, a lot of other, far worse things could happen before the nukes."

    Thanks for the insurance policy.

    I have a love hate relationship with Wartards blog. I've got two kids to raise and I love how he writes but I hate what he says. Mr 2:04 points out why Wartard is wrong by explaining how much easier to is wreck my life.

    I don't no what to say except fuck everything about this.

    Oh yeah, and entertaining article as usual Mr Tard. Even if it is about the end of the world.

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  9. I don't understand the reference to Domesday Book. The Domesday book is basically an ancient census, what does that have to do with apocalypse other than it sort of sounds like doomsday book?

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  10. Domesday Book (from Wikipedia)

    "While spending the Christmas of 1085 in Gloucester, William had deep speech with his counsellors and sent men all over England to each shire to find out what or how much each landholder had in land and livestock, and what it was worth"

    Thats fearful end of times talk from 1085, Oh wait, we're living in WTs sci fi dystopia. With nukes on the table he could be right, but fuck it.

    I'm heading to the supermarket.

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  11. You know... If I were in US intelligence and an evil soulless motherfucker, oddly the 'but I repeat myself' joke doesn't work here. Most of the real evil is in finance these days. Still if I was really cold blood simple evil I'd be figuring out how to get Pakistan and India into another war, and I would have been doing it for years.

    Pakistan's nukes are all either destroyed or launched at the subcontinent and what doesn't get nuked in Pakistan gets burned down by vengeful Hindu troops. India's population takes a haircut, but shit, look at how many men the Soviets lost and it didn't stop them, so we might not even have to worry about loosing containment on China.

    Fallout's halfway around the damn world, so no worries there. Maybe a few tech support jobs move back to Nebraska from Bangalore.

    Just a thought, as long as we're indulging our darker sides.

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  12. are you a fan of the neuromancer? where do you think our sci fi distopia is heading? (with or without a nuke to speed things along) 1984 esque total control of information and human action, but with justin beiber showing up on your telescreen every morning? cmon we may be facing resource wars but with the exponential increase in information goods, does it really matter? who cares if you're drinking victory gin as long as you have a world of warcraft subscription.

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  13. The US didn't turn into some a police state after 9/11 (additional screenings at the airport non-withstanding) -- and it wouldn't turn into some dystopia just because of one nuke going off.

    Obviously we would destroy Pakistan if this happened. Not sure why that is even questionable.

    The whole scenario doesn't seem nearly as salacious as you're trying to make it out to be..

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  14. Great post as per.

    New Favicon image too, very nice.

    Superhero esque.

    ZA

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  15. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkxmstBuB24
    3:14 for the relevant bit.

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  16. The episode itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Cuts_%28The_Sopranos%29

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  17. I wouldn't call this a 'great' article. But that is just because I dislike the subject matter.

    Well written and entertaining. Yes.

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  18. One of the most likely targets if a Jihadist gets hold of a nuke is Tel Aviv Having a large chunk of Israels population Israel would then be guaranteed to go ape and launch all there nukes.

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  19. Comments we're as entertaining. Favorited.

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  20. While an interesting fictitious scenario. I don't really think that's how it will go down. The US already takes unilateral action wherever it wants and has been carrying our attacks in Pakistan since 9/11. You haven't seen any retaliation to the scale of 9/11 so far. In fact the opposite is true. More Pakistani civilians and troops have died in the past decade than those who were brutally killed in the WTC attacks. If such a scenario is to ever arise. The US wouldn't even hesitate for a second and would blow all of Pakistan and its 180 million population into oblivion. Just like it did in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the American will move on. Pakistan will be forever condemned to the stone age.

    I also thought the stereotyping and name calling i.e. Pashtun fucktards was very unnecessary.

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  21. I just decided to drop by here and see what's up on your site, and whaddya know, you've finally got around to talking about Pakistan.

    Wasn't the Cold War supposed to end with a mushroom cloud as well? Especially if you were sitting in the early to mid 1980's?

    Your facetiousness annoys me. It is entertaining though.

    Also, an American air strike just killed 28 of my country's soldiers in a hot pursuit action. These were soldiers MY Pakistani taxes went to pay for.

    Get off your asses and take your money back from the global elite.

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  22. Meera Ghani: Get over WTs "Pashtun fucktards" reference. WT calls it like it is. He calls the populations of Western countries 'dumb plebs', Gazan ghetto people "fucktard goatherders", and doesn't spare Russians, Israelis or Chinese from his ire.

    WTs sarcasm applies to everyone. That's why we read him. Don't get butthurt just because your faction got singled out this week!

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  23. At the end of the day, we're all fucktards.

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  24. " Wasn't the Cold War supposed to end with a mushroom cloud as well? Especially if you were sitting in the early to mid 1980's? "

    nothing was "supposed to happen" as if it was a written scenario. the nuclear catastrophe was actually avoided by not much, and it was in 1962 with The Cuban Missile Crisis, not in the 80s...

    " Also, an American air strike just killed 28 of my country's soldiers in a hot pursuit action. These were soldiers MY Pakistani taxes went to pay for."

    no shit sherlock. it sure wasnt my tax money. but who cares anyway? it's a human tragedy, soldiers died because of a NATO fuck-up, and you find nothing better to say than "my precious tax moneyyyyyyyy"

    speaking of that NATO mess that just happened, I saw it on the news earlier tonight, and THEN I read your article.
    needless to say, bricks will be shat.

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  25. not in the 80s...

    I am referring to the early '80's Watson, because the collapse of the Soviet Union caught the official West by surprise.

    So if one scenario can be wrong (that the Soviet Union would last), I certainly think this pseudo-popular theory of a rogue Pakistan nuke, can also be wrong.

    And Anon 11:15, try to be less of a 'tard, and more a human. Especially when someone's trying to talk rationally.

    As for the killed soldiers, you guys amped up the fear and paranoia in the US, and now your Pentagon boys got to practice a dry run of unprovoked murder out on a bunch of Pakistanis. Doesn't seem like scenario building is much your thing. Fiction writing on the other, would seem a better pursuit.

    Write a scenario story on how Afghanistan will end. Try your hand at ending a regional epoch, before you try to prosnogticate on the fate of the entire world.

    Bricks will be shat. Nato could have a fun time with logistics over the next few weeks.

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  26. If this were to happen, then Islam would be finished in the USA, as opposed to being cravenly accommodated as it is today. Retaliation might include nuclear strikes against Mecca and Medina.

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  27. Oh brother. Quit fapping about the primacy of a nuclear threat. It's not the thing you should be worrying about. By the time nukes enter the conversation, there have already been a thousand willful fails by "leadership" clowns in politics that are hopelessly hopped up in the information vacuum, largely fueled by crap like this.

    If 'they' want to, 'they' can, there is nothing that can stop 'them' short of figuring out what 'you' are doing to make 'them' want to do something and working on that. If something does happen, it will unlikely be anything remotely related to nukes.

    The writing here is often interesting, but the commentary always seems to lurch towards the crowd fapping about (insert your adolescent violence fantasies here).

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  28. i do not see the fascination with pakistan as a rogue fantasy creature with nukes just chilling outdoor, next to the outhouses and mudhuts. india is the same exact way, if not worse. their nukes are equally as "safe" as pakistan's. they are both democracies, and identical twins, with people that don't trust the US. your argument is flawed and speaks of stereotypes in extremes.

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  29. funny how people keep saying "it all hell breaks loose, It won't be because of nukes"

    why not? how do you know? then what might it be?

    it probably won't be a fucking "tsar bomba", but the scenario of a small nuke OR some nasty bio weapon, being carried by ship in a container, is unfortunately plausible. there are people ready to die if they can harm USA in the process. and their imagination is limitless (9/11 ?)

    if they want, they will. it might be something else, but one thing is for sure: you will not expect it.

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  30. The only nation that might pull a nuke would be the state of Israel that has not taken the so called "Samson Option" off the table. They supposedly have nukes aimed at Europe's most fabulous cities, such as Rome. And they have said (university professors, rumor mills, Seymour Hirsh) that if Israel is about to go down it will take us with it. No doubt they would nuke the U.S. as well. So, I would not worry about Islamic dirty bombs, or Pakistan, or any of those nations when we really have a rogue nation on our hands with Israel. And this could be what is driving the war agenda--maybe there is a kind of black mail going on...if you don't go along with what we say we're going to do it cause we're the mad dogs and don't forget it...

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  31. Did I say I was offended? Just said it was unecessary. First time on this blog...so sorry if I don't know what WT sense of humour is like or how lightly we're meant to take such "terms". But sadly, as one of the anonymous commentators pointed out the scenario is full of stereotypes and is merely adding to the islamaphobic noise that already exists in the mainstream media. Like pointed out India isn't too different. In fact the country I find Pakistan most akin to is sadly the US, in terms of politics and the sham democracies we pretend to be. And if he any country would deploy their nukes it would be Israel.

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  32. simple is that the writter has some pschological problem. he is scared have lack of knowledge and tries to earn cheap popularity.should mind his language and should try to write on facts. if Pakistan would have been such a country as he thinks, then the doomsday would have already come in last 14 years since she has become a nuclear power. so plz dont try to make fake stories............

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  33. Thanks you for making the end of the world pretty funny.

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  34. The 'ideal world' that we all strive for is under constant threat, from a thousand different sources...whether the cataclysmic change (end?) comes during our lifetimes is another discussion...we're historically good at holding stalemate scenarios in place...but everything has it limits...all you can do is be prepared, for the worst, unfortunately.

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  35. The author needs to have more research done about Pakistan. You have to leave the US centric thinking , for Pakistan the bigger enemy is India and not US. As much as Pakistan hates US it hates India more than that. All the politics inside Pakistan revolves around anti India sentiments. All the jihadi groups hate India more than they do US.

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