Thought sparked from the other TEOTWAWAKI thread...

Traditional nuclear TEOTWAWAKI would be nukes hitting all the major cities.  What if they did the reverse - hit all the farmland (dairy, meat, poultry) producers and refineries?

Within weeks you'd have millions of starving people cramped in the major cities.  Social order would go poof as panicked people compete for food and water.  Most of your self sufficient/survival type people are killed in the initial strike.

Same is done to our allies, so we have no foreign aid coming.  The land that was suitable for producing is now contaminated.



Could that be more effective than the traditional way?

Wouldn't that take too many nukes????

I don't think they are going to waste a warhead on my 2 cows, 150 chickens, and 8 goats.

Far out, man!

Quoted: I don't think they are going to waste a warhead on my 2 cows, 150 chickens, and 8 goats.

+1

Just import fish and chicken from China.

Oh wait, we already do that.

Quoted: Wouldn't that take too many nukes????

Correct!  With global warming more land area will become arable so we can farm it and raise livestock on it (think Canada and Siberia).  No way all the nukes could cover all this ground.  Of course, the nuclear exchange would cause nuclear winter which would then freeze everything/everyone who had moved to the newly arable land so no matter how you cut it, we're all fuq'ed.

Yup, there is 150 times as much rural area as there is major cities. That means it would take 150 times as many nukes.

Those with the guns eat those without.




MMmmmmmmmmm, soylent green is people.

If someone set off a nuke in the middle of Kansas, it might destroy 0.00000001% of our farmland.

If you hit the cities, radioactive fallout goes onto the farmland and you get a "twofer."  

The problem is the delivery system.  We're stupid enough to put the vast majority of our Major Cities within a few hundred miles of each coast.  They're easily hit with ICBMs/Bombers.  How the hell is a bomber going to travel all the way to East Moses, Kansas just to bomb the chickens and yellow squash?

Also, you highly overrate nuke capabilities of foreign nations and their ranges.  It would take hundreds and hundreds of nukes to effectively create a glass parking lot out of, say, the Mississippi River Valley.

Interesting theory, but anyone considering such a strike would certainly go for mass casualties and panic.  Think Abdullah in Eastern Russia is worried about my farm and gear?

Quoted: The problem is the delivery system.  We're stupid enough to put the vast majority of our Major Cities within a few hundred miles of each coast.  They're easily hit with ICBMs/Bombers.  How the hell is a bomber going to travel all the way to East Moses, Kansas just to bomb the chickens and yellow squash? Also, you highly overrate nuke capabilities of foreign nations and their ranges.  It would take hundreds and hundreds of nukes to effectively create a glass parking lot out of, say, the Mississippi River Valley. Interesting theory, but anyone considering such a strike would certainly go for mass casualties and panic.  Think Abdullah in Eastern Russia is worried about my farm and gear?

Isn't there still enough nukes out there to take out the world many times over?

It doesn't have to be a glass parking lot, just contaminated enough to kill plants and animals.

Say they are patient enough a few days to a week for the radiation to kill them.

It wouldn't be the smartest thing to destroy a quantity of our arable land that they want too to use for it's resources of growing crops and raising livestock, besides being there for future useable development.

Large populations would still be left to rise up in anger and our weapons would further be turned on them in return.
Disabling our counter and preemptive strike capabilities with quick and decisive key strikes to do as little damage to potential gains while taking out as much as possible to weaken us is the smartest way. Killing as many of us as useful is another and weakening our ability to fight back too. That's what's best in the long run, not making all the arable land glow for years to come while leaving the population at large open to work against them for even a second more.

Even destroying major cities will destroy industrial gains and useful resources. Sneaking in and flooding the country with an engineered virus that you have the antivirus for to slowly but surely kill off the population while leaving everything else untouched is the best choice especially if you can do under the table and deny any involvement till your ready to strike in force with your forces and tachnology at your chosen moment. (even though sinister, what's new about the human race though)

If the virus could sweep through population and long distances quickly killing as it goes while being blocked off by quarantine by the rest of the world only sending aid and looking on they'd have a much easier time of it with the actual power to stand up to anyone else after it's done.

Combined military forces of China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and other Muslim forces, plus possible others like Argentina, Cuban and any small joiners could give the world a run for it's money if played smart.
As far as I'm concerned it's naive to think someone isn't thinking it and looking towards it as a possibility right now as we see military strength around the world continue to built and China's at a large rate.

(Damn I need a new gas mask)

Of course, the nuclear exchange would cause nuclear winter which would then freeze everything/everyone who had moved to the newly arable land

WTF!  It's so obvious, I cannot believe they missed it.  Nukes can reverse global warming.  Call AlGore, we've got a solution: Nuke the polar ice caps!

I thought that you really wouldn't want arable land glowing, but I'm thinking they are patient enough in their plan (and insane enough to use nukes in the first place).

Store shelves would be emptied within hours, people will panic and a city would probably degenerate into complete chaos within hours or days.

On top of an infrastructure failure, the food reserves would be gone before you could mobilize that many people off the continent in retaliation.  You'd have to retaliate with nukes.  

The fallout from hitting the cities will contaminate the farmland extensively, necessitating the removal (by hand most likely) of the first 2-4 inches of soil from arable land in order to grow uncontaminated crops again (the "best" soil).  A source of uncontaminated water will also be required.

Make no mistake, hitting the cities will be sufficient.  

No one wins a nuclear war.

Quoted: It wouldn't be the smartest thing to destroy a quantity of our arable land that they want too to use for it's resources of growing crops and raising livestock, besides being there for future useable development.

It actually depends on the long-term goals of whoever is controlling the nuke.  Some folks who want us dead don't care to take over the USA; they just want us dead and are willing to kill themselves off in the process of killing us.  Others will want the people gone while keeping the land and infrastructure intact.

Both groups would choose to target the cities first, so Joe Farmer in Kansas isn't a high-priority target.

What we are looking at now, is a limited strike with just a few (one?) warhead.

This will probably be smuggled in via ship.  A large coastal city will be hit.  NYC is the most likely target.  

Well, since the chances of nuclear war are about nil, about the same as this scenario...  Like in the title, a mental masturbatory thread.  Obviously a terrorist attack which can only smuggle a few bombs is out.  It's doubtful they can even take out 1 major city.

I'm thinking that even with a majority of the population alive, with no prospect of fresh food everything would go to hell in a handbasket mighty quick.

Traditional thinking would leave me to believe any attack on US soil by another nation, would focus on command and control areas...  Think DC, Military bases, ICBM launch pads, Naval carrier groups, etc...  

They would want to cripple our ability to respond, before wasting bombs on civilian targets.

A terrorist attack would be fundamentally different... in that they are not concerned about retaliation. They would focus on high-yield targets... like highly populated areas.

Two completely different scenarios.

Quoted: If someone set off a nuke in the middle of Kansas, it might destroy 0.00000001% of our farmland.

It probably wouldn't even make the evening news for a couple of weeks, then it would get buried behind whatever was happening to OJ Simpson or Paris Hilton.

Quoted: The problem is the delivery system.  We're stupid enough to put the vast majority of our Major Cities within a few hundred miles of each coast.

As a proud member of fly-over country, I think this was just freaking brilliant.
Even the prevailing winds won't bring me fallout from anything "important" except Chicago.

Larry

Your basic ARFCOMER knows that all you need to do is create panic nationwide, and the country will fall by itself from within.

The inner city folk, reliant on the government teat will begin to riot on the second of the month when their "Hey thanks for breathing, heres a $1000 check" check arrives from daddy.gov.

We would tear ourselves to pieces in less than a month, so running out of food/starvation would take to long to really have an impact.

The rural areas would be a waste of time and energy.