A Golem Rises From The Dead--Maybe

The Obama administration once more has its panties twisted.  This time it is over the issue of reawakening a corpse from the Great Cold War Graveyard.  The corpse in question is that of surviving a nuclear attack made not by the Soviet Union, which remains safely buried in the GCWG, but by "radical extremists" or, to use a word more common outside the Beltway, terrorists.

The Deep Thinkers of the current administration have become convinced that, horror of horrors!, once again the Bush/Cheney administration had it right.  A series of studies undertaken by the Ever So Smart Boffins at Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory, using those terribly expensive computers out there, have concluded that an attack by nuclear terrorists would be eminently survivable provided certain elementary measures were undertaken.

The dilemma for the Clueless Guy in the Oval and the rest of the bunch is how to get the necessary information out to city and state authorities and the great unwashed of the citizenry as well without simultaneously scaring the Great American Unwashed to a collective heart attack.  The Geek has to wonder, "Where is the problem?"

Mr Obama may be forgiven due to his youth, but there are a few in his inner circle such as Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton, and Robert Gates who are old enough to recall a basic fact of American life.  That fact is simple: Every American born since 1940 and before 1980 has lived the majority of sentient life under the shadow of nuclear extinction courtesy of the Soviets.

Excepting only the two times--the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis--when the buying of fallout shelters swept through the American suburbs, the Americans viewed the potential of nuclear death with a remarkable sangfroid.  Even movies such as On The Beach and Fail Safe did not perturb the equanimity.  The black humor of Dr Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb which had an approach heavily touched with the laughter of the gallows was shared by millions with delight and not fear.

Perhaps some of the adults surrounding Mr Obama can regale him with tales of school.  Tales of "duck and cover."  Tales of the lovable Bert the Civil Defense Turtle.  If not, perhaps the Obama's can glom onto a copy of Atomic Cafe which contains all the memorable stereotypes of the Days of Civil Defense and Community Fallout Shelters.

The message from history is clear: The American public has a long and not particularly disturbing experience with living in the shadow of the mushroom cloud. The collective We the People can accept the facts, they can take a heavy dose of truth no matter how inconvenient or unpleasant.

The problem comes not with telling We the People the truth about nuclear terror weapons and survival but rather just how accurate is the study done by the Lads and Lassies of L-L?  At the moment this is hard to determine as the essentials necessary to evaluate the study and its very optimistic conclusions were omitted from the several MSM articles covering its release yesterday and L-L has not seen fit to post it online as yet.

The conclusions of the study run somewhat against the grain of earlier efforts.  The guts are quite simple and very sunny.  In the event you see the bright flash, go to a "sturdy" building and stay there until the "authorities" tell you it is safe to leave.  The authors even point out that an automobile can provide a significant measure of protection against the radiation (whether both direct and prompt or delayed as in fallout was unclear.)  Overall the tone of the study seemed to be far lighter than even the much derided effort of the Reagan years which was dubbed by the cynical as "the with enough shovels" report.  At least the Reagan period piece emphasized pre-attack preparations which is an area of consideration minimized in the L-L report.

The methodology employed was adumbrated as computer modeling of a hypothetical attack on New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and several other large and medium cities.  Lacking from the outline were such significant considerations as the height above ground of the nuclear detonation (nudet) the yield of the nudet, the time of day when the nudet occurs, weather conditions, any biases built into the device such as one in favor of radiation at the expense of thermal and blast effects, or the nature of the device, gun type uranium or implosion type plutonium.  All of these considerations, particularly those of height of burst and yield can have a direct and major effect on the nudet's characteristics and thus consequences.

Given some of the report features mentioned in the MSM coverage, such as the effect of the fireball on the vision of drivers, one gains the impression that the study assumed an air burst or, at least, the positioning of the device in the upper portion of the tallest building in town.  This assumption on its own can directly effect the optimistic conclusions.

A ground burst by its very nature lofts a very great deal of highly irradiated and finely divided materials into the atmosphere.  Most will stay in the low to mid-levels and fall out quickly and heavily on the areas immediately downwind of the nudet.  An air burst, even one located in a tall building, will loft less material with the difference being most pronounced in devices of low yield and thus smaller fireball diameter.

As it is unlikely that terrorists will have a high kiloton or megaton range dial-a-yield at their disposal, the most probable yield range will be below fifteen kilotons, a range covered by both old nuclear artillery shells and the man portable atomic demolition munitions as well as some of the elderly air to air and surface to air missiles contained in both the US and Soviet inventories.  As the US has a very good handle on what has been or continues to be in its inventory, a consideration which does not apply to the old Soviet Union and its successor states, the most likely way for an ambitious terrorist with beaucoup bucks to gain access to a big enough bang would be via Red Army Surplus.

The ten to fifteen kiloton range also covers the devices most easily fabricated by countries new to the nuclear weapons game.  Thus the estimated range covers nicely the possibility of terrorists gaining access through the good offices of a friendly regime with a high tolerance for risk.

In either event, the most probable terror weapon will be in the small tactical yield category.  To be most effective such a device is best used as a ground pounder in a city with comparatively few tall or massively constructed buildings which is on flat land preferably surrounded on at least two sides by relatively high hills or mountains.  This would provide for maximum thermal and blast effect (which could be enhanced further by staging the nudet for the peak of summer at midday) while providing maximum local and mid-distance fallout of high radioactivity.

Choosing a mid-size city would also provide more casualties as medical facilities would be more readily overloaded.  Big cities are spread out which means more first responders, more medical facilities, and more infrastructure will survive a small yield nudet.  The smaller target, say one of the 100-500,000 range would give a very dramatic high casualty demonstration.

The news reports did not list all the cities simulated in this study, but if it didn't include places such as Tucson, El Paso, Albuquerque, Midlands-Odessa; it should have.  Cities of this size meet the criteria for the most effective employment of small yield devices.  They also have the advantage of being convenient to the international border.

Even an attack on a small town such as Las Cruces, NM would provide a very convincing demonstration of terror.  In a real sense an attack on a small, inconspicuous place is more dramatic, more frightening, and easier to carry out than one on the usual suspects of NYC, Washington, LA, or the Windy City.  Taking out half or more of the sixty thousand or so folks who live in Cruces would tell every American everywhere, "You ain't safe, bubba."

And that is what terror is all about.