US Citizens Unprepared for Crises

Real Threats Require Real Preparedness

They At Least Recognized a Threat

• CIVIL PREPAREDNESS.

During the Cold War, which – for those of you who were either too young or self-deluded at the time – was a real war, the national leadership thought it prudent to warn everyone to take steps against a nuclear attack.  We had children ducking under desks at school, lectures on blast and radiation, and instructions on how to build a bomb shelter.  If you were unfortunate enough to be away from a bomb shelter during an attack, there were widely-published directions on where your nearest refuge might be.  The entire society, in other words, took the threat of attack and possible annihilation seriously.

It’s been almost nine years since 9/11, yet the notion that citizens should be making any preparations for another attack is conspicuously absent.  Yes, there have been some reported drills by First-Responders, but no “Civil Defense Corps” or other organized attempt to have people know what their options are in case of a calamitous attack.  Where are emergency supplies stored within walking distance of most people?  What, if any, are the communication options?  If land lines and cell phones are inoperable, is there a plan that can be broadcast on radio?  What medical aid can be expected, in order to allow citizens to cope with each type of attack?  Where are the instructions for understanding the nature of the attack that is underway?

What will be done to control panic?  Looting, rape and robbery?  Is drinking-water available?  What about antidotes to biological attack?  Treatment against chemical attack?  Quarantine, if the attack is a deliberate spread of deadly virus.  Weapons training, authorization and supply in case of urban guerrilla warfare that overwhelms the police and National Guard.  (Deputation and a standing, back-up militia may be necessary.)  Training of volunteers in emergency medicine.  How to function effectively, i.e., survive, in the absence of electricity or support services.

• THREAT AWARENESS.

More Threat Variety Today

According to the government, the US undergoes thousands of attacks, daily, on its government and civilian internet sites.  The commercial loss is staggering, and the extent to which government secrets are lost and vital networks compromised, we may never know.  What would be foolish for us to ignore is the probable disappearance of the internet and cell-phone networks in a real attack. Warfare is such today that we may never know who attacked us.  We have been effectively at war with Iran for years – accurately, them with us –  without a shot being acknowledged on either side.  China is notorious for stealing US industrial and military secrets, both in person and electronically.

Is that a casus belli?  Or do we simply act as if it’s mischievous, while desperately fighting it in the shadows?  Russia seems to be scrambling to reconstitute as much of the USSR as possible, while using Stalinist methods to combat internal dissidents.  I’d have to check, but I seem to recall them being responsible for more journalist assassinations – currently – than anyone else.  (Stalin’s philosophy regarding the murder of dissidents – or even those who might prove inconvenient at a later date – was said to be “No person, no problem.”)

I never forget that I’m living in a country that was thrown into a panic when unable to identify and capture two lone snipers.  There are reports that Mexican and South American drug gangs have now occupied hundreds of medium-sized American cities.  Some are better-armed than the military.  Our own home-grown, multi-generational gangs have slowly evolved into international criminal cartels, originally fueled by illegal drug money, but now by slaves, drugs, prostitution, counterfeiting, money-laundering, kidnapping, extortion and, as the cherry on the banana-split…ownership of legitimate businesses.  We tolerate that threat, because it only means the slow erosion of law and order and our ability to perform the necessary police functions of a civilized society.

But those folks aren’t our declared enemies; just our undeclared parasites.  The declared enemies – those who actively strive to eliminate our presence on this planet, are twofold:  Jihadis and Marxists.  Jihadis get a lot of satisfaction from being martyrs, so there is no real incentive for them not to confront us violently, even if it’s with cowardly attacks with explosives.  Since they have an unlimited supply of martyr volunteers, we can expect cars and individuals to be blowing themselves and us up for the foreseeable future.

Marxists are left over from the Cold War (which occasionally became hot – Korea and Vietnam come to mind) and have learned that violent confrontation is not such a hot idea, so they’ve become state-sponsors of terrorism.  In other words, the Cold War has continued by proxy.  China and Russia know that as long as they have deniability, we can be attacked in numerous ways by their proxies, all over the globe, and we will pretend each attack was the proxy’s idea.  China has spent years modernizing its military, presumably with the aim of being the regional hegemon.  This is not good news for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or the remainder of Southeast Asia.  Meanwhile, it’s terribly convenient to have North Korea as their proxy for both local and Middle Eastern capers that wouldn’t be palatable if they had to front them themselves.

• STEALTH CONQUEST

We're Not Prepared for Either!

A “nuclear umbrella” is mostly a bluff.  We’re not going to start a nuclear exchange with someone unless we are absolutely certain that, otherwise, they will be doing something equally nasty to us.  Our military and its equipment are mostly designed for a large, European land war (remember:  we are the guarantors of their security).  If we’re attacked by a proxy, or in a sufficiently stealth manner by a state, who will we retaliate against, and how?  It looks like the state of technology today is such that a nuclear submarine or a nuke tipped rocket fired from a ship at sea could instantly have us living as we did 200 years ago.  No electric; no modern technology to speak of.  An electro-magnetic pulse weapon ( EMP – a nuke high in the atmosphere) would have that effect. The picture at left depicts a burst caused by solar radiation impacting Earth’s magnetic field – a way for nature to have the same effect as an enemy.  The above link is to an article in “Space Review.”

Or,  a nuclear sub – could,  equipped with modern weapons – effectively incinerate the country.  (I know, all the military buffs will call me out on that, but I think it’s generally true.  If not, the destruction would still be enough to justify our concern.)  If you’d like a novel that features a community trying to survive following an EMP attack, “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen is an interesting scenario that some find improbable, others possible.  I don’t mean to harp on EMP, because it only represents one type of threat – however unlikely – but knowing it exists raises our awareness of the new weapons paradigm we find ourselves in.  A government commission to investigate the threat was appointed in 2001, issued a report in 2004 (which you can click on at the EMP link above, was reconstituted in 2006, and issued its latest report in 2008.

• CIVIL DEFENSE.

It is possible that we live in a world where, in a very short amount of time, and without warning, we could be effectively destroyed as a society, and not necessarily discover who caused it.  It’s probably not paranoid to recognize that some of the above mentioned states and their proxies could coordinate an effective attack on this county that would leave them blameless and us as history.  Our politicians don’t want to scare us and, God knows, they don’t want to raid their already empty coffers to pay for civil defense, but having all of us grow up a bit and act as if these things are real, would be a step in the right direction.  You actually don’t need to spend a lot of money to recognize a threat and organize a response.  Fatalism is not a traditional American characteristic; we need to recognize we’re in a new environment.