A ‘Reichstag fire’ event would hardly work in America, as the author pointed out, most Americans would cheer, high-five each other and honk their horns, IF there were to be a premeditated ‘trigger’ event, it would most likely (IMHO) take the form of a real or feigned public health crisis, something really exotic, bizarre (possibly imaginary in fact), ‘radioactive ebola’, ‘explosive leprosy’, the mind boggles at the possible rationales given, but if the public believes that everyone is at ‘risk’, not only would they roll over for the martial law gambit, they would welcome it (the majority of the unthinking masses of sheep that is).
My greater concern would be that in a real or staged ‘crisis’, that various factions within the government might figure out how to obtain control over part of our nuclear arsenal, which is why I’m pinging FReeper OldMissileer to this discussion with the question, “is there any way that the PAL (Permissive Action Link) could be disabled or circumvented, either at the local weapon location, or somewhere up the chain to the NCA (National Command Authority)?”
And if you (O-M) can’t share that sort of answer with us, it is certainly understandable.
I’ve heard it said that trying to bypass the PAL is like trying to do heart surgery going n through someone’s rectum...
It is probably more likely that the nuclear launch codes would be compromised [that is, a failing along the human chain-of-custody] or that the nukes are disassembled and the fissionable material put into a newly constructed warhead which doesn’t have PAL.
I’m no expert, so take what I say with a 50lb bag of salt.