[nathanbedford]

The scenario:

Terrorists detonate an atomic bomb in Cincinnati which had been smuggled across the Mexican border. Mexican officials where needed have been easily bribed. A scant hour before the detonation a notice appears on the Internet warning of time and city for the destination in order to gain credibility. The notice demands that America submit to sharia or a second city will be bombed within three days.

The United States government has no idea whether the bomb was manufactured in North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Russia or elsewhere. The United States government has no idea of the identity of the terrorists who are small in number and maintain strict security. The government is unable to assure the American people that the next city can be saved.

Within three days a second bomb explodes in Dallas and a similar message appears on the Internet. Americans are furious but a large minority of Americans, especially mothers, are terrified and demand that the government accede to the terrorists' demands. The President of the United States speaks to the nation for a second time and declares again that the United States will never surrender to terrorism but his assurances ring hollow.

A third bomb explodes. The government has no recourse. It does not know which set of international players is responsible, it does not know whom to bomb. It cannot identify the terrorists who in any case have committed suicide. It threatens to bomb Mecca and Medina but the Saudi government makes a declaration of surrender to the United States and invites American troops to occupy the country to prove that they are innocent. The cries in America for surrender to sharia grow exponentially.

A fourth bomb explodes in Philadelphia and America surrenders.

Satellites, ICBMs, thermonuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, and all the modern panoply of America's wonder weapons avail the world's superpower nothing. It does not know how to defend itself or whom to defend itself against. It cannot control the fear swelling within its own population because it cannot spare its own population from destruction.

Rightists bluster and demand that Muslim countries be vaporized but in this scenario it does not matter whether Muslim lands are struck with atomic weapons are not because the endgame in the homeland remains the same. The terrorists, seeking Armageddon as a theological goal, are indifferent to threats or even to actual retaliation. They seek their own endgame.

[Talisker]

Your scenario requires a level of ineptitude that is impossible to accept. The complete collapse of our intelligence systems at every possible level, so this mysterious enemy can pop off nukes with abandon and leave absolutely no tracks? America surrendering to a mysterious enemy which never reveals itself - presumably even after the surrender, and who then control America remotely? How, from a Facebook account with their privacy settings set to “don’t tell”?

In the event we really were up against it somehow as badly as you portray, all that would happen if we “surrendered” is that our military nuke, space, scalar and other assets would go black and wait. And once enough information was gathered, the eventual military response would be absolute, and this mysterious enemy would cease to exist once and for all.

Thing is though, there is no mysterious enemy anywhere. All is known, all is exposed to those involved. The players are all under the lights. Not on television or the Net, no. But very well known, and tracked, and watched, by all involved, every moment of every day. That’s reality.