Nuclear Bombs

I don't stay up at night thinking about this, but maybe I (sic: we) should.

Experts think that there is a 50/50 chance a nuke will go off in a major US city in the next ten years. That's better odds than me directing a feature within that time, I should think. Man.

I think we need to have black op teams out there trying to sell nukes. We need to gather intel on everyone trying to buy nukes and freeze their money - and whack 'em if we can't contain them.

We need to have a two part plan for containing nukes:

1. Diplomatic - Prevent proliferation. Although everyone agrees on this, there doesn't seem to be much we can do - act too soft, and they build nukes, act too tough and they build nukes. Nukes = power. It's sucks, but it's true and no one is ever going to give up power.

2. Back - Up plans. We've got troops in Afghanistan, troops in Iraq, and troops in South Korea. One reason this is good is that we can quickly go in grab Paki nukes, Iranian nukes, or North Korean nukes, should something go terribly wrong...like say, Musharef gets assassinated, or someone starts a war with Israel, or North Korea and Japan decide to go to blows.

The other thing is containing what's already out there. Who freaking knows where all the uranium is...

Yup, the world is going to hell, for sure. We're in the second nuclear age, and frankly I think we have just as much reason to be scared as the first (although annihilation doesn't seem to be the issue, just constant fear).

All this bickering between Europe, US, and S Korea, left and right, Kerry, Bush, Michael Moore...will dissolve in the event of a mushroom cloud. We'll be bonded together in an anger and fear hundreds, if not thousands, times more powerful than 9/11. Our reaction to such an event might even be scarier than the event itself.

UPDATE:

Well here's another article by the same guy saying the same thing, but citing some experts.

Derosa seems to think I'm a nutjob writing about this...his attitude last night at the bar sipping White Russians seemed to be "Who cares..." (add the Jersey inflection). If it happens, it happens.

Well, kind of. I agree we can't control everything, but we can try to minimalize the possibility of such horrific tragedies. In WWII, 50 million people died and the world, somehow, kept spinning. So in that respect, yeah, we'll survive, I think. But we can also go the Tom Cruise in Collateral route - we're just a little speck on speck in the universe - so who gives flying fuck about any of it.

Maybe the answer is to simply entertain ourselves as much as possible while we're here. But I don't think that. And no one I care to spend any time with thinks that.

Kevin and Alice also think I'm crazy - Kevin logically thinks such analysis needs to be weighed against prior odds of such a catastrophe and so on...basically saying, which I think is true, the predictability of such things is fairly absurd and impossible and has so many intangible factors that any type of number is basically bogus. I agree with this, but don't think the conclusion is that we throw caution to the wind, give up and say, ahhhh, it's too tough - tempting and true as that may be. The probability is a guide, a weight and not meant as some type of absolute truth.

Alice seems to think that I way overestimate the possibility of getting a nuclear bomb. She insists that it's really difficult to do so, and terrorists can't do it. I hope so. The problem with Alice's thinking, and I think most people think this way, is that to me, it is the way a heathly human being faces the world. We don't constantly worry about horrific things that really aren't within our control. If one did, no one would ever hop in a car, go out at night, or take any type of risk.
But what I'm proposing is not that we stay inside all the time, but that we reevaluate our security situation given new information and new realities. We have all sorts of systems set up to minimize risks, speed limits, safety belt laws, well-designed cars, police, the essential trustworthyness of people out at night, etc. If we didn't have these things in place, and weren't constantly reevaluating the effectiveness of such structures, the world would be a much more dangerous place.

The post-9/11 climate in America is both fascinating and freaky. There are a wide array of different reactions. There are two principal modes of thought and all sorts of nuances and subsets within those groups - Mode 1) 9/11, while tragic, does not essentially change the way I view the world. This was a criminal act and we have structures to deal with it, the UN, the FBI, the CIA, etc. Mode 2) 9/11 was a wake up call to a new type of world reality, previously unimagined, where small, clever groups of people can challenge huge power structures (ie nation-states, buildings, infrastructure) using relatively unsophisticated technology, cell phones, email, box cutter, airplanes, and home-made bombs.

Alice believes in Mode 1... But there are times when the world is radically changes, the French and American revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, World War I. Old ways of doing things become antiquated overnight. Imagine being the first army to face a foe with bow and arrows. Or artillery. All of sudden, everything you ever imagined to be the way to do things goes up in smoke. The longer you deny the reality - that your foe has arrows and can shoot you from a distance and you keep charging at him with a sword, the stupider you are. At first, maybe he can't shoot the arrow straight, and you can get him with the sword. The second time, he can shoot the arrow, but it can't penetrate your armour, and you get him again. The swordman, however, must realize that eventually, the bow and arrow is going to be effective...but if he keeps insisting on using the sword, and even if he becomes like a Jedi Knight with the thing, some day, the bow and arrow guy is going to bust out a powerful bow that can splice through armour at a 100 yards when you weren't even aware he was there.

To me, we've been the swordsman with respect to Islamic, Al Queda-like terrorism, we keep using the sword, but their bow and arrow keeps getting stronger and stronger and more effective. We need to adjust and try new things and get creative and imaginative and ruthless.