Response to nuclear attack through proxy ?

[Beatmaster]

Iam not sure if terrorists can get their hands on nukes, and if so then it will be not a complete nuke or warhead, but probably just a dirty bomb.
Non the less still, imagine a dirty bomb in a city like new york, or a chemical agent....
Thats not going to be funny.
However if the source can be traced back towards a foreign goverment then the option to drop a nuke in return becomes real i think.
Aside from the worldwide manhunt as the US will do whatever it takes to get its hands on the "mastermind" who planned this.

But depending on the damage and casualties i think that if (for example) a nation would plan this then this nation will suffer serious military and economic punishement not to mention the international pressure and anger they are going to face. And that is if they are lucky

And if this terrorist act is done by a rebel group or some rogue warlord then i think that this warlord would have to run and hide for the rest of his life (If they can trace it back) Because as i said the US will call upon every ally, goverment, and human/asset to find this person or group.
And will probably use any means to achieve this.

On a side note: If this would happen wich is not that unreal as there are weapons and chemical agents out there and accesible for rich terrorist groups, then the US has another battle to fight as there will be some heads rolling in D.C and there will be some serious questions about national security.
Because after all the security laws that the last 10 years where enabled you might assume that the US goverment did go to great lenghts to secure its own borders.
So if this would happen then there will be hell to pay in the pentagon just to make sure that this is not going to happen a second time.
Because keep in mind if 1 person/group would be able to pull this off then you can be sure that others might try this as well.
I mean lets face it there are loads of rebel/rogue groups and goverments out there who are not exactly friends with the west or with the US in this case.
However in order to get such a action done you need to have some serious connections wich means that such a terrorist act would only be possible for a few groups and goverments.

I mean you are not delivering a everyday letter... so you will need to be able to carry out cover-ops to the highest level in order to be able to pull this off in the first place.

So my question is wich groups would have the assests do carry such a thing out?

[rip]

Originally Posted by Beatmaster

Iam not sure if terrorists can get their hands on nukes, and if so then it will be not a complete nuke or warhead, but probably just a dirty bomb.
Non the less still, imagine a dirty bomb in a city like new york, or a chemical agent....
Thats not going to be funny.
However if the source can be traced back towards a foreign goverment then the option to drop a nuke in return becomes real i think.
Aside from the worldwide manhunt as the US will do whatever it takes to get its hands on the "mastermind" who planned this.

But depending on the damage and casualties i think that if (for example) a nation would plan this then this nation will suffer serious military and economic punishement not to mention the international pressure and anger they are going to face. And that is if they are lucky

And if this terrorist act is done by a rebel group or some rogue warlord then i think that this warlord would have to run and hide for the rest of his life (If they can trace it back) Because as i said the US will call upon every ally, goverment, and human/asset to find this person or group.
And will probably use any means to achieve this.

On a side note: If this would happen wich is not that unreal as there are weapons and chemical agents out there and accesible for rich terrorist groups, then the US has another battle to fight as there will be some heads rolling in D.C and there will be some serious questions about national security.
Because after all the security laws that the last 10 years where enabled you might assume that the US goverment did go to great lenghts to secure its own borders.
So if this would happen then there will be hell to pay in the pentagon just to make sure that this is not going to happen a second time.
Because keep in mind if 1 person/group would be able to pull this off then you can be sure that others might try this as well.
I mean lets face it there are loads of rebel/rogue groups and goverments out there who are not exactly friends with the west or with the US in this case.
However in order to get such a action done you need to have some serious connections wich means that such a terrorist act would only be possible for a few groups and goverments.

I mean you are not delivering a everyday letter... so you will need to be able to carry out cover-ops to the highest level in order to be able to pull this off in the first place.

So my question is wich groups would have the assests do carry such a thing out?

My argument of a possible massive retaliation in the event of a nuclear weapon being detonated on US soil dose not extend to most of the dirty bomb cases that have been put forward. I don’t think unless, there are extremely high civilian causalities we would go all out and nuke all the bad people in the world. That doesn’t mean we would not be far more aggressive in dealing with those governments and groups that have even tangentially supported terrorists, like bombing them with convention weapons or the use economic blockades,or even selective strikes to take out their leaderships and the like, but it would not extend to destroying complete cities, which is what the nuclear option really means after all.

I think by and large the dirty bomb threats are over stated. Most of the dirty bomb attack plans I have heard being talked about, are not much more than hazardous materials spills with some added dispersal agents. Governments deal with similar incidents every day and of every kind. Hazardous materials are common in every day life and they are transported in great qualities and accidents do happen. The attraction of a dirtily bomb to the terrorist is besides the psychological part of anything assonated with nuclear (Ho my God! Nuclear.) is that the quantities that can do great damages are so small, but not as small or as dangerous as some biologicals. That added with the possibility that they could possibly be put into position very close to unusually large concentrations of vulnerable people, like sporting events. An association of risks that would be very unlikely to never happen in an industrial or transportation setting, in which those hazardous materials are usually confined and exposed to people are ar least some what prepared to deal with them.
The confluences of factors to make a spectacular attack, an attack that will cower the American people into submission, (in the minds of the terrorist’s at least) are few and the risks of a failure very great because this is what is expected. An attack on some ordinary every day American activity is far more likely to succeed but would the results be worth the effort?

[Beatmaster]

Aha...well the only thing i can say, from what i have seen and what i have been told dirty bombs come in all kinds.
Most of them just have a big bang and some destruction, but dirty bombs can be very very nasty.
Specially when chemicals or bio agents are mixed in it.
It might be not a nuke then....but the casualties do not lie.

However getting a older type nukewarhead and rebuild it to a pocket size bomb aint that unreal.
In the past similair things have been discovered by agency's world wide.
Its rare.....very rare but by far not impossible.

I mean a nuke dropped by plane or from a rocket you will see it comming....but some truck with a bomb crate...can be missed during shipping checks and such.
And then the danger becomes real very real.

If i recall correctly there was a national test in the US where they simulated such a scenario and the outcome would be that its actually very easy to get a hidden bomb on US soil.
* Note with very easy i mean compared to the wide security nationwide.

Also other nations world wide did some tests and nearly all faced the same problem that they could not stop it from happening as they where able to detect 80% of all the shipping and transport of goods but somehow if planned correctly it would be perfectly possible to get a nuke into the US.

[SABRE]

Originally Posted by Beatmaster

Also other nations world wide did some tests and nearly all faced the same problem that they could not stop it from happening as they where able to detect 80% of all the shipping and transport of goods but somehow if planned correctly it would be perfectly possible to get a nuke into the US.

There is no such thing as perfect security but 80% lapse is far fetched also.

Chances of getting caught with radioactive material (i.e. nuke) into U.S. are much higher than anything else. Biological and chemical agents can be of serious concern.

Making RDD or dirty bomb from radioactive materials is quite risky. Radioactive materials like plutonium or cobalt-60 will kill the handler if he is no expert. But if he is an expert chances are he'll get caught since he'll need a proper infrastructure to build workable weapon (be it RDD) - the resources and time he'll require are enough to trigger off intelligence. Plus, this will have to be done on U.S soil to keep the risk of getting caught at borders and ports minimum to zero. Blame would be on U.S alone then.

[Beatmaster]

Originally Posted by SABRE

There is no such thing as perfect security but 80% lapse is far fetched also.

Chances of getting caught with radioactive material (i.e. nuke) into U.S. are much higher than anything else. Biological and chemical agents can be of serious concern.

Making RDD or dirty bomb from radioactive materials is quite risky. Radioactive materials like plutonium or cobalt-60 will kill the handler if he is no expert. But if he is an expert chances are he'll get caught since he'll need a proper infrastructure to build workable weapon (be it RDD) - the resources and time he'll require are enough to trigger off intelligence. Plus, this will have to be done on U.S soil to keep the risk of getting caught at borders and ports minimum to zero. Blame would be on U.S alone then.

I totally agree with you, thats why i said in my previous post that its very difficult to make a RDD, however there are some "rebel" group out there who have alot of support.
So lets say for example that a "rebel" group gets enough support and aid from a goverment to carry out a covered ops then even if the risks are high it does not guarantee that it fails.
I mean the security of most western nations are for most nations a serious prio.
I think that there is still alot that can be done to ensure security but most intel organisations like, FBI, CIA, NSA, Interpol, SAS and Mosad (Not to mention russian and chinees agency's) to name a few will probably have their stuff well sorted.
But is it enough?
If there is money (if enough) then anything is possible.
Personally i think that ruling out the possibilities of a serious RDD (Or any kind of such terror attacks) would be a massive mistake as history does show us that with the right amount of effort, money and planning even less organised groups can be very very deadly and even with all the security networks around the world they still where able to carry out their missions.

Having that said, IMO a normal group would not be able to pull such a stunt off at least not at a grand scale.
But if a (rogue/evil) agency or goverment has special intrest and thus supporting a rebel group then i believe that any nation can be hit as they have enough time, planning, money and acces to the proper infrastructure and people.
And thats exactly the scary part as you never know how when and where...there is only IF.

Btw you said that the plutonium or cobalt-60 will kill the handler if he is not an expert.
Well personally i think that the guy who is going to create a RDD based upon these components does not care if he dies or not as it is only a matter of time.
If he fails he dies probably and if he has succes he will be dead to cover up the tracks.
And if he surives the previous 2 options then he probably will get shot on sight if they ever find out who he is and what he has done, as others said before, the targetted nation will probably shake heaven and earth upside down to find who ever is responsible for such a attack.
And as i said before if you got money and connections then the proper infrastructure and people are not that big of a problem to obtain.
Iam not sure but there are alot of arms dealers and corrupted highranking peepz out there who can get their hands on the needed stuff and if not they might have at least the right connections.
just my 2 cents

[EXSSBN2005]

Fewer than 2 percent of the trucks crossing the border are subject to extensive searches requiring the complete off-loading and inspection of cargo, says Rene Felix, a U.S. Customs supervisory inspector at the commercial-truck crossing in Nogales.

Phoenix

I know that port inspections are a little bit higher percentage but its only about 5% still with the exception of radioactive materials as its harder to modify a shipping container to contain the shielding nessary to fake out the gieger counters due to the nature of radiation thats detectable in relation to the amount needed to be useful if your refining it here in the USA. It could be brought in sufficiently enriched and just needing to be assembled in a private plane of relatively small size, or brought in in a tanker truck as they are not going to check the load out (also helps with shielding) if it is an extremely dangerous / hazardous chemical unless they are suspicious, which if they are nothing will stop them from getting it or just plan luck. The volume of road / rail traffic is such that only small percentage of all cargoes are sufficiently checked hence the idea behind the club - k missle system (sure its not nuclear but Ill try to get back to topic after this slight detour) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6dKCkv1fzs

A chemical weapon might not be as spectacular but it would be alot easier to move it to where it would be used but then again you would be going for cities that are heavily populated.

As for killing themselfs with Co-60 or Pu for a dirty bomb they had a chart in the service showing exposure times and life expectancy at varying levels, (I'm too tired to dig much but here is close to the info, in nuke school it was in a quick reference chart but I cant find that one open source any where [http://www.nukeworker.com/study/hp/n..._Radiation.pdf ] ). Here it is again about 1/2 way down.

Radiation poisoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Radiation poisoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Radiation poisoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Total probability you would get cought before hand is approx 50% or less, post detonation though they will find the parties responsable to more than 95% of the time, the question as I believe to be the origional intent of the post was what would be the planned response and level of response based on that we could figure out who carried out and financed the attack. Do the governments that would carry out an attack thru proxie hide behind their citizens if the bombs were going the other way. (After reading that the last sentance was really disjointed but I'm too tired to care atm)