Everyone’s afraid of a terrorist organization acquiring an atomic bomb, and rightly so. But if Al Qaeda or someone similar actually got one, what would be their best course of action? The common scenario is that they would put it in a standard shipping container and blow up a port city like New York or San Diego. But is that really the best use of the bomb? Nation states have had nuclear weapons for sixty years, and they have found that the best use for the weapons is not to actually use them but instead to threaten their use in order to get what they wanted. This has usually resulted in the nuclear standoff we became so familiar with during the Cold War.
Osama bin Laden has proven to be more than a kill-crazed religious maniac; he’s a tactically shrewd kill-crazed religious maniac. It seems to this amateur intellegence analyst that if he were to come into possession of a nuclear weapon, he would be presented with a number of problems.
Does it work? If it’s a stolen Soviet-era bomb, it may have deteriorated on the shelf. If it’s homemade, the design or execution might be bad. What happens if he follows the shipping container plan of action and the thing is a dud? But if he’s only got one, he can’t test it, and if he’s got two and tests one of them, he’s going to have the full weight of the US and allied military machine combing the test area and most likely invading Northern Pakistan in order to find him and/or the bomb.
What to blow up? If he’s got a standard-sized bomb, say 500 kilotons, that could make a pretty big hole. But he’s only got one of them. Does he nuke Washington during the State of the Union address to destroy as much of the government as he can in one fell swoop? Does he blow up a coastal city? How about a target of opportunity such as a college football game or music festival for maximum civilian casualties? How about a US military base in Iraq, or somewhere else in the world? Or should he make some part of the Saudi oil fields radioactive?
Do you really want to blow anything up? What would the consequences be? Surely he must be impressed with the success of the September 11 plan–he’s still free, the US is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and spending money and materiel like there’s no tomorrow, and jihaidism is more popular than ever. But if he nukes a city, will that hurt the cause? Terrorism is as much about PR as it is about warfare. Perhaps a threat to blow something up would be more effective, or you could use the weapon as a deterrent, just like nation states do. “Withdraw from Iraq immediately or I will destroy Chicago.” “The Saudi royal family must abdicate and leave the country to a leader of my choosing or I will destroy Rhiyad.” “If any Islamic country is attacked, I will destroy London.” Do you make your threats publically or in private communications to world leaders?
Then what? After a threat of that nature or full on use of the bomb, what happens next? What would the US response be? What about the international community? What happens to the jihad after you’ve used your ultimate weapon?
The above is assuming Osama (or whoever) is a rational actor. If the Invisible Man Who Lives in the Sky tells him to blow up Seattle, well, all bets are off. But all signs point to Osama being a rational actor. Frankly, I don’t know the answers to the questions I asked, but it seems that nuclear terrorism would be a much more complicated than just “put the bomb in the boat and watch it go boom.” I think a nuclear blackmail scenario is much more likely than a suprise attack, but what do you, the esteemed community of Dopers, think?
Blackmail first, then nuke the city anyway. That way you get the whole package: terror, panic, confusion, and body count. You can’t just threaten, because it might not go boom. They might not believe you have one anyway, unless you videotape it. If you have two, then follow the True Lies scequence: nuke someplace to prove you have them, then start issuing demands.
Nukes are actually a poor way to use the radioactive material. Read The Hamlet Ultimatum to see what other mischief you can get up to with plutonium.
I think advance warnings and threats would be a stupid move. Nobody’s going to give in to the demand, and they would increase the likelihood of a plot being disrupted and probably scare people away from likely target areas. To me, it makes more sense for them to just pick a landmark or soft target and have someone walk on over there. A shipping attack works too. Can you imagine the results of the government temporarily closing all of New York or LA or America’s ports?
The sad thing is that the CT part would probably take care of itself without terrorist involvement.
Can’t strap on an atomic bomb. Way too big. Not only are they not man-portable, they would make a big lump under your coat. But the “just use the damn thing” argument assumes that they haven’t thought the problem through very well, IMHO. Indeed, I think just randomly blowing some shit up would hurt their cause more than helping it.
Plus, the pleasing blue glow adds visual interest to an otherwise ho-hum living room.
Once again, the first scenario ends up with bad PR for the orgainziation. It make them liars and not very good muslims. ObL has been very careful to present the front of a pious man. In his own way, he probably is a pious man. A murderously pious man. Breaking a deal is not his way, IMHO. But you do bring up the point of how someone would prove he or she has an atomic bomb. Photographs accompanied by samples of the nuclear material? Risky but doable, if you’ve got enough plutonium. If you’ve got two, I agree that you use one a military target and then threaten the use of the other one on a civilian target, although that does give the other side time to let Keifer Southerland loose. So to maxmize body count, you should go with suprise. But if you have geopolitical aims, you should use it for blackmail.
But the unsuccessful test runs tip off the enemy that you’ve got the bomb before you’re ready for the big bang.
Really? I think there’s a pretty damn good chance that somebody would give in to demands if they thought the threat was credible. And if people panic and flee a target area, well, that’s just as successful a TERRORist attack as if you actually let loose the nuke. Terrorism is about PR.
If it was Al Qaeda? Use the nuke to take a Middle Eastern or other Islamic country hostage as quietly as possible, then regroup, recruit and redeploy after the losses in Afghanistan and Iraq. A new host is what that cancer needs.
In any event, the possibilities of an unused nuke are endless, while a used nuke isn’t worth a damn. You wouldn’t give it up for anything less than a comparative strategic gain, and you’d be a fool not to at least try to have your cake and eat it too. Setting it off prevents that.
Just my opinion. But I don’t think the US would give in, at least. Maybe my opinion would change if we were discussing a more specific threat.
It’s not remotely as successful. A bomb threat lives on in people’s memories for what, a few weeks, tops? An actual attack is permanent. You could destroy a building, kill people and wound an industry. Many people in this country grew up with what amounts to an unending threat of nuclear bombing. But there’s never been a nuclear attack on this country. I don’t think there’d be any comparison.
The PR is only effective when people believe the words can be backed up. There hasn’t been an attack here in 4 1/2 years, and when Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Zarqawi speak to America today, the people yawn.
If al-Queda’s stated purpose is to make the US leave the “holy sites” (i.e. saudi arabia), then what better way to do it than to attack an American city? Moving a nuclear bomb into the USA could be done in many ways; however, the easiest would be to send it via a cargo container. This means shipping to a port city, then trucking it. How likely is it that such a deadly cargo would be caught? i’d say pretty slim. On the other hand, suppose al-Queda got a nuke and shipped it to NYC. A truck picks it up in NJ, and takes it toa factory in the garment district of manhattan. It sits in a basement, and gets wired up to a computer, to trigger its demolition. A-Q announces one night 9on Al-Jazeera0 that unless all US troops leave the ME (immediately), the bomb will bge detonated. What do do then?
But if you’ve only got one nuke, and you don’t want to actually use it, how do you convince folks that you have a working nuclear weapon and are willing to use it?
I disagree. Al Qaeda’s strategy is and always has been to strike at the United States and its allies in ways that will simultaneously make us look weak and provoke us into actions that will drive a wedge between us and more moderate elements in the middle east. It’s a mistake to view them through the old “threat/demand” model of dealing with terrorists. They’re not trying to extort anything from us. They’re trying to insult and anger us in order to strengthen their own radical cause in the Islamic world.
To maximize this effect, the blow should to come out of the blue, as 9-11 did. The 9-11 attack caught us flat-footed and made us look clumsy and vulnerable. The situation was out of our control. This is exactly what Al Qaeda wanted.
If Al Qaeda should (God forbid) get their hands on a nuclear weapon they’ll set it off in Manhattan or Washington. No other target has the same symbolic weight. The economic effect of the attack is a secondary goal. It will be New York or Washington because Los Angeles is too diffuse to be an attractive target. A nuke at the Port of Los Angelese wouldn’t even crack people’s windows in the Valley. And outside the United States, where Al Qaeda’s primary audience is, the only U.S. cities that matter are N.Y., L.A., & D.C.
After then, after the blast, they will announce that they have more weapons even if they don’t … .
Is there any solution other than grabbing someone who can verify it, taking them secretly to the place it’s hidden, letting them examine it, and then releasing them or putting them on video?
Would videotape and a sample of the fissile material delivered to Al Jazzeria be considered a credible threat? The kidnapping-an-expert plan seems too risky.
Another thought: Al Qaeda has been making its demands for years. There’s really nothing to be gained by making them again. I think their M.O. is “attack, THEN make your demands.” They’ve been open about their pursuit of suitcase nukes as well.
But if you’ve already attacked, why should anyone grant them their demands? If they’ve got one bomb, then they need to go the old make-threats-and-demands route.
Of course, as was suggested upthread, they could fire off their one bomb and then claim to have another one.
The demands have to be made first, if you only have one nuke. That gives you a cushion against the totally bad PR of using nuclear weapons. You can say something to the effect that “The Great Satan refused our demands that they leave the Holy Sites” or some other such garbage, then Boom! If you have multiple weapons, then a no-warning strike against NY or DC is your best bet. Followed by a list of demands that are now backed by a credible threat. I agree that LA is a lousy target. It’s just too big. And the policy-makers don’t live there anyway.
The big question mark in the equation might be Israel. What actions might they take against Islamic targets if Al-Qaeda shows that they have the means of eradicating Israel? Especially if it looks like the US is going to cave on the demands. I can see a number of capital turned into glass if that happens, starting with Teheran and Damascus.
If you can get ahold of a single nuke (bought or self-made) how difficult is it to get ahold of a second one? Are the old suitcase nukes stored in a few well-covered areas or are they scattered?
Basically, why do anything with your first nuke until you’ve got a second? That’s what the US did (not counting tests, which nobody knew to look for).
I didn’t say they’d extort anything from us; I said they’d find someone else to extort.
Respectfully, aces in the hole don’t get traded on “symbolic” victories. They trade, if at all, to ensure survival or in a use-it-or-lose-it scenario. And to be perfectly frank, using a nuke on Washington or New York might well result in a U.S. response so devastating that there wouldn’t be enough of the Islamic world left to support a radical movement, let alone make wedges.
Of course, Merijeek’s point is well taken in that having more than one bomb changes the equation and makes actual use far more likely. But I was adhering to a strict reading of the OP, that being what they’d do if they had only one.