William Perry's nightmare

[knot]

Former engineer and secretary of US defense shares his worst nightmare:

http://thebulletin.org/multimedia/willi ... -nightmare



... What's up with that plot? Seems like complete nonsense to me, but I'm thinking there must be a good reason he imagines it could happen like that

[brimstoneSalad]

With enough properly enriched uranium, a small team of engineers could build a nuclear bomb, sure. Not a very compact one, though.

http://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/will ... ll-lecture

Here's a more extensive talk. Nuclear technology is difficult, and the main concerns are mostly civilized nations. Even mediocre diplomacy can avert these risks as long as there aren't any environmental pressures.
With global warming, though, it seems unlikely that we'll avoid regional warfare -- even nuclear -- with loss of food security and billions of people starving.

I think bioterrorism is more of a threat. Much easier to smuggle around and deploy.

[knot]

Damn, dealing with reality sucks. Those prospects look pretty bad already, but with global warming added to the mix it will be a shitshow

In that article his nuclear scenario is less specific than in the animation. I was really confused about the whole part with American renegade engineers assembling a nuclear bomb, sending it to Qatar and then having it sent back to the US again. That whole scenario seemed weird and implausible

[brimstoneSalad]

I was really confused about the whole part with American renegade engineers assembling a nuclear bomb, sending it to Qatar and then having it sent back to the US again. That whole scenario seemed weird and implausible

Was the enriched fissile material originally from the U.S., and did they assemble it in the U.S.? That doesn't seem to make sense. It would be a lot easier to just truck the thing to D.C. I assumed I misunderstood the source.

[knot]

I was really confused about the whole part with American renegade engineers assembling a nuclear bomb, sending it to Qatar and then having it sent back to the US again. That whole scenario seemed weird and implausible

Was the enriched fissile material originally from the U.S., and did they assemble it in the U.S.?

Yeah

I think the point is that the engineers want to obfuscate the origins of the bomb and put the blame on Muslims at the same time... or something

I don't know how likely it is that a terrorist organization forms within the US military though, or why they would be motivated to blow up Washington