Do you mean on our side or theirs?
I could see MENA militant strategists being unhappy with the open-endedness of waiting for the American public to vote their way. The
American public is also unlikely to be the wiser if the US continues to fund governments the MENA militants find oppressive or
sacrilegious. I agree that the “slow bleed” approach is the one likely to be adopted: it is the path of least resistance. I am just unsatisfied
with the fear of a possibly psychotic over-reaction being an argument against the tactic. Over-reaction of the “oppressor” is often
actually counted on by terrorist/partisan groups when composing attacks.
If you’ll re-read the OP you’ll see there is nothing about “inducing sufficient casualties”- it is about forcing the defense of thousands of
miles of above ground infrastructure.
How about this time in two years? When the financial/bloody burden is too great and the US decides to withdraw, will another poke of the stick get them back in? Would 1 big bomb every 5 years on US soil keep the US entrenched indefinately?
Exactly part of my curiosity as well- do they think the tactic unfeasible or unwise? Or are they biding time while getting in place for a
long undercover run?
I was hoping a few more of the armchair generals of the SDMB would come out for comment. Surely this is a possible route MENA
militants could take…I’ve seen other threads/posts advocating the effectiveness of a “smart” bombing campaign - no words of wisdom
here? I don’t believe we can count on the fact that they are scared of retaliation. No one wants to discuss how the US would actually
counter the logistics of this endeavor it seems.
Armchair generals- Are there MENA militant organizations sophisticated enough to pull it off? Can the US defend or continually repair
it’s miles of rail, oil, power grid and communication lines in an effective manner? Can they do so while maintaining multiple occupational
forces and/or combat operations in MENA? Could specific combat actions effectively curtail a domestic bombing campaign by taking
out overseas training, recruitment or financial operations? Is commercially available ordinance on the domestic US market up to the job
of large-scale sabotage? What would be a “target rate” of sabotage to force defensive home-front action? Will US law enforcement be
able to track their weapons and operatives of choice? People focus on port security but aren’t reasonable personnel and materials
available within the US borders? more of a legislative question I guess which leads to…
Armchair economists/politicians: What would be the economic and diplomatic ramifications of MENA wide punitive bombings? How
would further combat operations be funded and staffed? If no civilians are initially killed in the sabotage campaign- what would be the
best spin to do “what was necessary”? Does EVERYONE believe punitive bombings WOULD happen, regardless of what evidence is
found?
I guess because Tommy Thompson was retiring anyway, he didn’t mind getting crossed off the list too. 
If you want nuclear Armageddon, sure. If you don’t, no, it’s not a good idea.
Hur, hur, hur.
“Ghost” of “Marlowe”
Ah, I see. Well, IMO, combating that would be easy:
-
hire/draft thousands or millions of police/troops/private security forces to patrol the US
-
use DHS and something like the defunct TIPS to form a Stasi-like system that uses snitching, spying on neighbors, unrestricted wiretaps/mail reading/eavesdropping/etc. to get the majority of US residents under the govt. thumb
-
enjoy your wartime police state, with frequent interruptions of power/fuel/food/sewage/water supplies due to sabotage, plus massive unemployment (though the need for troops and the construction of materiel could offset that), etc.
I think you’re crazy to think that any attack on US soil–even if it’s just on infrastructure, rather than people–would LESSEN our desire for war.
Yep.
Middle East groups could DESTROY America this way–at least the America we know today–but I do not think they could DETER it.
You’re not quite getting me. I am not concerned about how bloody minded Americans can be or their “will to fight”. The MENA militants want actual troops out of their region - attacks on the American mainland makes the US take actual physical precautions. American desire for war is of no consequence if it is directed back to South America or the hills of West Virginia.
I see you’ve suggested the implementation of a police state as the most likely way to defend against a geurrilla assault. When you say “enjoy your police state” I’m not sure what you mean: I’m neither a MENA based terrorist or an American. I can’t imagine the MENA groups losing sleep over an American Stasi- except as to how it would curtail their abilities.
So you honestly think Americans would be psychologically incapable of bringing troops back to defend home turf? It would be too much of affront to honour or bravery or something. A draft and secret police would be more palatible to the American public. That’s a rather dismal assessment.
So is your proposed strategy, then, that militants would attack the US homeland simply with the expectation that it would force the US to divert a finite resource (troops) from foreign lands to the homeland?
I think our main difference of opinion is this: I think, if troops are needed at home, the US will create more troops–not move existing troops home from abroad. The finite resource of troops and materiel is not as finite as your scenario envisions.
Our nation is not yet so poor, so destabilized, nor, sadly, so sick of war, that it cannot muster up new troops and materiel.
You seem to think that the troops abroad would be desperately “needed” at home. Short of invasion by the Russians or Chinese, there would likely be no crisis so immediate and dire that it could not be dealt with in a stopgap fashion by existing domestic law enforcement (and the scant few Natl. Guard units still in the States) until new troops could be inducted and trained. I don’t believe that militants engaging in terrorist activities of the sort you describe could possibly create such a need.
That is indeed where we differ. I wouldn’t say “so poor”, I would say the budget is stretched as about as far as it can go. Recruitment is currently down from expectations (I seem to recall) but I’m sure even casualty free attacks could jump start that.
Here we disagree as well. If attacks seem to be occurring all over the country wherever you don’t have gaurds then you have to start playing the zone. It’s not a matter of expelling a huge force- it’s a matter of trying to be everywhere at once.
This is assuming they are able to counteract traditional FBI tracking- which I do not take as a given. However, the “lone bomber” isn’t the easiest suspect to catch though if he is workmanlike rather than simply a sociopath.
I still think that you are sorely overestimating the amount of people you could find for such a task. The amount of infrastructure damage required to pull troops out of, for example, Iraq and Afghanistan would have to be comparable to a full blown civil war and nigh continuous. Lone bombers simply would not be up to the task and once you involve groups it becomes much easier for the FBI to track suspects and deals.
And once it becomes clear that that the country is the target, you’d get a lot more volunteers in the military and even at the civilian watch level.
It’s not impossible, but it’s purt near.
Well the Eastern time zone has had it’s power knocked out by an ice-storm and a fire at a single installation. There is a lot of ungaurded freight train lines. A small oil pipeline explosion could wreak untold environmental damage. Let’s just say I think massive havoc is a lot easier to unleash if done with cunning and organization.
If everyone agrees that a) American money and troops are in practice limitless and b) America would willingly take on the costs of a large security force at home while upscaling overseas action then I would concede yes, the OP’s tactics would be unsuccessful.
This sort of thing is expressly forbidden in the BBQ Pit. We don’t expressly forbid your exact comment on GD because we expect that everyone already knows better.
Understood?
[ /Moderator Mode ]
This isn’t to rebut any previous arguments. I’ll just toss out a few numbers and see if it provokes any different perspectives here.
When the Center for Strategic Studies did a simulation called “Silent Vector” on a possible terror threat to east coast infrastructure they assumed:
• Nuclear Power Plants (43)
• Refineries (7)
• LNG/LPG Storage (above ground) (50+)
• Pipelines
• Petroleum Terminals (110+)
• Chemical Operations (1400+)
• Dams (25+)
Current attacks on Iraqi infrastructure may be useful models. Here’s a straight list of attacks on Iraqi infrastructure:
Iraq Pipeline Watch
So MENA groups already have people experienced in the sabotage of oil infrastructure- I wonder how many would they have to sneak in to be a problem to really worry about and would they sneak in some to merely train domestic operatives? I’m not sure if “Task Force Shield” is the total so I can’t say what the troops/mile of pipeline in Iraq. According to that article, Iraq has about 4,300 miles of pipeline so TFS is currently staffed at 3 guards/mile.
In the US ( poorly formatted DOE report):
Anyone know how much petroleum pipeline there is or their gaurds/mile? I know there’s an oil industry buff out there.
At this point, I must presume that it is the learned opinion of the SDMB that American foreign policy is immune to domestic military interference other than goading. This by dint of it’s massive financial/troop supply and “mess with me and die” attitude- given another superpower is not directly involved. I must say I’m surprised at the unanimity so far displayed.