One Nuke in 9/11

Skokie

Banned
Multiple detonations? We'd start bombing every target in Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan; and from there Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan (once the oil and nukes are secured)—with zero regard for collateral damage. Probably with the help of Europe, Russia, India, and China. Fire, starvation, disease, disruption of communications would set back or destroy those countries (many of which are fragile as it is). Eventually, nukes might seem the more humane route.
 
Multiple detonations? We'd start bombing every target in Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan; and from there Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan (once the oil and nukes are secured)—with zero regard for collateral damage. Probably with the help of Europe, Russia, India, and China. Fire, starvation, disease, disruption of communications would set back or destroy those countries (many of which are fragile as it is). Eventually, nukes might seem the more humane route.

What! In that case, the US had better be ready to live with 50% of its petroleum supply for a long time. The premise of the thread is a single detonation in NYC. Suppose Al Qaeda claims responsibility. The US now has an excuse to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The problem is that a conventional invasion in such rugged territory is difficult. The enemy could move away as fast as the invasion force approached. The US could use a single tactical nuke on a terrorist training camp. That wakes them up, and demonstrates the US is not afraid to use a nuke. But this was on a strictly military target.

The US sends a liberating/invasion force to Kabul, much as in OTL. You might see a few more tac-nukes if large concentrations of soldiers and military gear are identified, but we would probably refrain as long as there were no additional attacks in the US.

You might very well butterfly away the Iraq war, since it was based on very flawed intelligence reports about WMD's.

The biggest priority for the US, though, will be the survivors in NYC. American resources will stay here, and do much better without Iraq. The consolidated metro area consists of some 15 million or more people in three states. If you look at the map, only one to three milllion were killed.
 

Skokie

Banned
What! In that case, the US had better be ready to live with 50% of its petroleum supply for a long time.

The US would be more than happy to commit to a land invasion to secure the oil fields. Not that I think that'd be necessary. The Saudis would probably cave to any demand, including bombing raids in their own country.

The premise of the thread is a single detonation in NYC.

Well, someone introduced a second premise that there were multiple detonations.

Suppose Al Qaeda claims responsibility. The US now has an excuse to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan. The problem is that a conventional invasion in such rugged territory is difficult. The enemy could move away as fast as the invasion force approached. The US could use a single tactical nuke on a terrorist training camp. That wakes them up, and demonstrates the US is not afraid to use a nuke. But this was on a strictly military target.

The US sends a liberating/invasion force to Kabul, much as in OTL. You might see a few more tac-nukes if large concentrations of soldiers and military gear are identified, but we would probably refrain as long as there were no additional attacks in the US.

You might very well butterfly away the Iraq war, since it was based on very flawed intelligence reports about WMD's.

The biggest priority for the US, though, will be the survivors in NYC. American resources will stay here, and do much better without Iraq. The consolidated metro area consists of some 15 million or more people in three states. If you look at the map, only one to three milllion were killed.

The statistics on just what the NY metro area comprises goes anywhere from 18 to 29 million people. Luckily, they're spread out pretty far and you'd need quite a few nukes to take out or irradiate/poison/wound all of them. Commuters in the far suburbs, especially not downwind from city, should survive.
 
OK, suppose there are two nukes. Where would the second one go? Probably not NYC, because that would be over-kill and one takes out the financial nerve center. Washington, DC, maybe? Possible, but again, that is another "intellectual property" target that can be moved and like NY, does not involve a lasting effect on the brick-and-mortar infrastructure.

Where could they go? I think the worst target would be Hoover Dam. It does not kill so many people, but it inflicts a very long lasting wound on the infrastructure. Think: 1 to 2 GW of "free" electricity off the power grid for a long, long, time. No water or power for Las Vegas. A wall of water that takes out Lake Havasu City (London Bridge is falling down for good) and water draft points for much of Arizona. It would be exceptionally destructive to the economy, IMO more so than the bomb in NYC.
 
OK, suppose there are two nukes. Where would the second one go? Probably not NYC, because that would be over-kill and one takes out the financial nerve center. Washington, DC, maybe? Possible, but again, that is another "intellectual property" target that can be moved and like NY, does not involve a lasting effect on the brick-and-mortar infrastructure.

Where could they go? I think the worst target would be Hoover Dam. It does not kill so many people, but it inflicts a very long lasting wound on the infrastructure. Think: 1 to 2 GW of "free" electricity off the power grid for a long, long, time. No water or power for Las Vegas. A wall of water that takes out Lake Havasu City (London Bridge is falling down for good) and water draft points for much of Arizona. It would be exceptionally destructive to the economy, IMO more so than the bomb in NYC.



In a 2 nuke scenario, the the Hoower Dam seems a smart chioche, too smart, too effective... That will cause a neverending tumult in conspiracy theorist circles!

Peraps Los Angeles?

Any place where a nuklear blast will cause a Cernobill grade disaster taking down a reactor?
 
Snarf,
A few comments:
NoI: The simple reason the Nation of Islam would be immune from much of the criticism is that the NoI's major membership is in the inner cities.
Hate Crimes: You left out the Copts...
Comics: While DC and Marvel would lose their headquarters and a number of writers, there are quite a few comics writers who are based outside the NYC area.
 
In that case, the US had better be ready to live with 50% of its petroleum supply for a long time.


Mark,

Contrary to popular belief, the US imports only 13% of it's oil needs from Saudi Arabia. The top five oil exporters to the US are in order Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria.


Bill
 
The question of reconstruction

There used to be some contributors to this thread which seemed to have more grasp on the effects of a nuclear detonation. I would like to read something about the longevity of the radiation in Manhattan (I still go with the least-ASBish 150kt-nuke in Midtown from that chillingly precise description of initial events).

I know that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rebuild rather fastly - but, those were the 1940s.

I would also like to come back to the issue of "Ghost towns". How many people would exactly move away. A lot of the economic substance of the NYC-megalopolis would have been destroyed - not just the jobs but also the employees which again provide income distributed to the places where they live, be it in the surviving Boroughs or the Suburbs. To put it short, the food chain of the whole region has been cut.

Health issues or the inability to bear the (non-) sight of a eradicated Manhattan would drive others away.

Coming back to health. I assume that the statistical probability to be befallen from cancer would be higher for decades. Cynically said - does that mean that only people who cannot afford a health insurance anyways place would stay in NYC?

If there is a new development taking place we talk abot a multi-trillion-$-project. In case of the money being available, fantasy can run wild here.

- Might Manhattan become a National Park? And New York's new skyline would actually be in New Jersey on the NW-shore of the Upper Bay? The twenty-lanes plus several rails "Manhattan Memorial Bridge" linking Brooklyn with the new Downtown via the Southern tip of Manhattan.

- If Manhattan is rebuilt, which "Historical" buildings might be re-constructed; a question many European cities had to answer after 1945. Would there be a new grand design for Manhattan (I am sure that there would be some sort of downgrading?), maybe extending the Central Park further south, concentrating the high-rise buildings on the shores?
And talking about shores, how about using the rubble to elevate the city a few feet above sea-level to make it safe for eventually rising sea levels?

-Any other concepts?
 
Contrary to popular belief, the US imports only 13% of it's oil needs from Saudi Arabia. The top five oil exporters to the US are in order Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, and Nigeria.

Fifty percent was an inexact and arbitrary number, but the removal of Saudi Arabia from the world's oil supply chain will impact the availability of oil from the other sources.

In a 2 nuke scenario, the the Hoower Dam seems a smart chioche, too smart, too effective... That will cause a neverending tumult in conspiracy theorist circles!

Peraps Los Angeles?

LA is far too spread out for the bomb to be effective. Same with the Houston Ship Channel, the entry point for a substantial amount of imported oil and goods.

To say nothing of artists, some of which don't even live in the United States.

Even though the blast took out corporate headquarters, major studios and the source points for TV networks, many of the workers/artists/broadcast news people may have survived if they were far enough away. Once rescued, Bryan Williams and Katie Couric might be able to give the evening news from a different studio. It would be important for national morale to televise surviving personalities as soon as possible.

If there is a new development taking place we talk abot a multi-trillion-$-project. In case of the money being available, fantasy can run wild here.

The government is going to take command of the banks and economy to prevent panic. Resources that might have eventually gone to the Iraq war or even the bank crisis of 2008 will be available through the decade.

Once the situation is stabilized (people evacuated from fallouot zones and power/water restored to millions of survivors), business activity will return, headquartered elsewhere. President Bush initiates military activity against the Taliban in Afghanistan. As long as there was only one nuke, you have an OTL-style fight in the middle east aided perhaps by a tac-nuke or two.

A two or three nuke scenario creates a very different situation. Washington DC and Hoover Dam would most likely be next in line and since there are so many contingency plans in place to "move" the government, I would say the dam is next. But if we stick to the topic, the only nuke hits Manhattan.
 
Snarf,
A few comments:
NoI: The simple reason the Nation of Islam would be immune from much of the criticism is that the NoI's major membership is in the inner cities.

To a point. How many Moslems were killed in the 9/11 attacks OTL? And how many will be killed by this attack? To a radical revolutionary a certain amount of collateral damage is not only acceptable but unavoidable.

Statements by Farrakhan and other members have advocated violent revolution. That alone will draw the attention of the FBI in a big way post-attack. Also, I'm not saying that NoI would go this route but there is the whole notion of setting up an attack on one's own supporters to stir them up and kickstart the revolution (Reichstag fire, anyone?) They don't have to have been responsible to take advantage of people's anger.

NoI is also in danger from white supremacist groups and others who will inevitably connect them to the attacks. Who needs evidence when hate works just as well? And the NoI is considered heretical by both Sunnis and Shiites, so they'll not get comfort overseas either (although if the leadership is smart, they'll spin this to their advantage--"We're not like those guys--they hate us too!"). The movement probably doesn't survive more than a few years after the attacks given the pressure from all sides. Traditional black churches and (to a much lesser extent) mainstream Islam will probably fill the gap.

Hate Crimes: You left out the Copts...

Not deliberately. Armenians caught a lot of grief, too. The point is a lot of people who get mistaken for Moslems based upon superficial factors like appearance are going to get targeted as well. Al Qaeda at one point was training operatives to impersonate Mexicans (by learning Spanish and emulating more visible aspects of Mexican culture) to infiltrate via the southern border. If that plan had worked, how many Mexicans would have been targeted by already bigoted people as potential Al Qaeda operatives? One could argue in fact that this particular plan was mainly intended to create racial unrest with the actual mission of the operatives only a secondary objective.

Comics: While DC and Marvel would lose their headquarters and a number of writers, there are quite a few comics writers who are based outside the NYC area.

They'd lose the headquarters, a large number of writers, most of the top-level staff, and probably their archives as well. In OTL Cracked Magazine lost all of its pre-2001 archives in the anthrax attacks (which affected its offices in Boca Raton, FL--colocated with several other magazines and newspapers). It never quite recovered, although the eventual transition to an all-online format was probably inevitable given trends in publishing anyway. The comics industry could recover but it will take a while.
 
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LA is far too spread out for the bomb to be effective. Same with the Houston Ship Channel, the entry point for a substantial amount of imported oil and goods.

LA and Houston would be mainly economic targets: destroying the harbor facilities in either city would be devastating to the economy. While hundreds of thousands of people would be killed in either attack, it would be possible for either city to rebuild eventually. LA would be a hard cultural target to attack, as its main cultural assets are too far spread out (even the major studios aren't very close to one another).

Setting a bomb off on the Las Vegas Strip would be a nasty symbolic gesture and would seriously wound the economy of the state of Nevada (to say nothing of killing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying most of the first responder infrastructure in the region--those fire trucks are going to take a long time to get there from LA or Phoenix).

Any city along the Mississippi River would create a major world of hurt for the economy: nuke New Orleans and you've shut the entire river for traffic for at least several months. A bomb in Chicago or Atlanta would take major transportation hubs and cultural/economic centers off the board. Or they could go for a one-two punch along the Northeast Corridor and set the second bomb off in another large city in the region (Philadelphia would be a good choice based on economic impact and population density, although a bomb in Boston or Baltimore would probably destroy most of the downtown area of either city and render a major harbor unuseable).

A two or three nuke scenario creates a very different situation. Washington DC and Hoover Dam would most likely be next in line and since there are so many contingency plans in place to "move" the government, I would say the dam is next. But if we stick to the topic, the only nuke hits Manhattan.

Hoover Dam going kills most of the power grid for the southwestern US, and creates major damage for every city downstream. Imperial Valley agriculture is destroyed, and California's economy takes a huge hit.
 
If AQ had a second nuke, they'd use it on Washington DC. For the same reason they hit the WTC in OTL... it's symbolic. They are looking to send a message, not so much planning on how to economically cripple the USA. They could have crashed those planes into a lot of more valuable targets, but they chose the WTC and two targets in DC.
 
Comics: While DC and Marvel would lose their headquarters and a number of writers, there are quite a few comics writers who are based outside the NYC area.
Likewise, consider how the fandom would react. There is no way that the fans would allow DC and Marvel to die, and the surviving stockholders would know this. Further, there are a huge number of people who aren't really fans anymore, but grew up reading Superman, Captain America, and so forth, and would consider reviving DC and Marvel to be a part of beating the terrorists (and might start buying comics again, for that very reason). Also, soldiers tends to buy a lot of comics, IIRC, and they want the ones they're familiar with.

The comics themselves would be very different, though, full of propaganda like during WWII, but more sophisticated. The characters and storylines would likewise be quite heavily altered from OTL, even apart from the propaganda and "BUY WAR BONDS" ads. Even the Legion of Superheroes would change its general tone, I'd think.

On a related note, where was Stan Lee during 9/11? Would he survive?
 
A few things I wanted to say.

1. I was living a couple of time-zones away from New York when the planes crashed, but I can tell you I was scared as hell when the TV showed WTC in flames, so I guess I can understand the desire for revenge. But nuking population centers are out of question, even if, indeed, New York was nuked. (Though I couldn't say what I'd think if I'm American)

2. As for the 2-bomb scenario, what if the 2nd bomb, such as it was, was placed outside U.S., say London? Would they did a lot more damage to Western economy?

Marc A
 
-> The Bush administration is not completely full of lunatics and knows the points above.
FTFY. :p
-> The US military is not capable of taking on all its enemies at once.
You're right; it's not. But NATO at WWII levels of mobilization (which is what would happen if NYC were nuked) would be able to.
Above all, a crash program to make the United States independent of the Middle East for its energy needs (petroleum from Mexico, South America, and yes the ANWR in the short term, focusing on renewable sources for the long term) and thus not have its foreign policy defined by Middle Eastern oil dependency is key toward winning this war. Take away the one thing that can be used against the US and suddenly everyone gets a lot more polite.
Would there be a huge nuclear fission power plant building program? Would our desire to end our dependence on Middle Eastern oil outweigh our renewed fear of anything nuclear?
 
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