I say within the next dacade, and the most likely source will be North Korea. If the sanctions cause things to get sufficiently desperate, then the leaders might well figure that they have little left to lose. Also, if they have bunkers capable of surviving a nuclear strike (or, if they think they do), then that just might be enough to make them willing to call our bluff and start a war.
Any “terrorist” nuclear strike would, IMO, most likely be a covert attack by a nation, using the terrorism angle to provide deniability. As unlikely as this seems, there’s reason to believe it might work. The 9/11 attackers were almost all Saudis, and yet Saudi Arabia is still considered a US ally. As is Pakistan, even though it is widely believed that Pakistani intelligence was protecting Osama bin Laden right up until the day of his death.
I say within the next 5 years. I’m not going to be looking for a mushroom cloud over Miami but a dirty bomb is incredibly easy to make, transport and detonate. Some pack of wackos (al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, PETA, The People’s Liberation Front of Judea, etc.) will decide that now is the perfect time to show how serious they are by irradiating their enemy. Imagine the emotional impact of seeing Wall Street or Jerusalem turned into a radioactive ghost town like Chernobyl.
Not likely, but not impossible. I think it’s much more likely that if there was a US military response, they’d basically try and destroy the airshafts and tunnels to the bunker and just effectively bury them. I don’t see the US ever first-using nuclear weapons, unless one of the 50 states or Puerto Rico is directly threatened. The Israelis on the other hand might well try that, assuming they have an effective bunker-buster nuke.
This is more what I think will happen. Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad or an Islamist junta gets control of Pakistan, loses all sense and restraint, and nukes someone because they can.
I think that would work the other way around; N. Korea miscalculates, starts a war that moves them onto the defensive very quickly and nukes a S. Korean city or US/S. Korean troops in the field in a last-ditch effort to stave off defeat.
I don’t see this happening; the last thing you’d want to do if you had nuclear weapons for sale would be to tip your hand in such a grand fashion. Every Western, and a lot of non-Western security and intelligence services would be hunting you harder than Osama Bin Laden.
No. I think the US retains some of these weapons, but IIRC, there aren’t any tactical nukes on submarines anymore, and the vast majority (if not all) that remain in the arsenal are B61 free-fall nuclear weapons dropped from planes.
“Dirty bombs” aren’t nuclear weapons and wouldn’t do that. They aren’t likely to kill anyone who isn’t right next to them, which is probably why no one tries to make one; it shouldn’t be too hard to get hold of enough radioactive garbage from a hospital or such for one. I recall a case where a bunch of kids in IIRC Mexico got themselves irradiated by playing with “glowing dust” they found improperly disposed of in a junkyard; if they could find some, so could terrorists.
I know that a dirty bomb won’t wipe out a large area but imagine what would happen if one was placed on the floor of the NYSE or in the middle of a museum or mall. Better yet, left in Times Square or a comparable location. The initial explosion kills a few people, the cloud of debris covers the immediate area and radioactive material gets carried by the air currents for a few blocks. The quarantine would prevent normal business from occurring and causing people to be more cautious in approaching public areas. Who would want to go shopping if they are afraid the next bomb might happen when they are browsing at Macy’s? The cost would be enormous as the radioactive material is cleaned up (roads and buildings scoured and the water siphoned off so it doesn’t go into sewers). Even if “only” a handful of people receive a dose strong enough to make them sick but not kill them the terrorists would have struck a huge psychological impact on our way of life.