Hi Rush,
Greetings from a dedicated listener who still thinks you are the KING of hosts. I didn’t hear your comments relating to shelters vis-vis North Korea, but I think my business partner did.
Civil defense is a crucial element in national survival…ask the Russians who found civil defense invaluable during WWII. If the people who make your helmets, rifles, aircraft, artillery shells….are dead, you aren’t going to win any wars. That’s why Russia has a general over civil defense that sits on the general staff. that’s why they can move 60 million Russians to hardened civil defense shelters for several days and exercise their comm nets and logistics networks. [think if what it costs to take 60 million out of your economy for four days…] Last year, they “only” moved 40 million to shelters for the exercise. But they can do it.
In the US, the DoD HATES civil defense because it would compete for tax dollars against their pet weapons programs….like the dud known as F35. But that is another story.
According to an Oak Ridge “State-of-the Art Assessment” of civil defense in 1984, a nationwide civil defense blast/fallout shelter program could be built for 300,000,000 Americans for around $75 billion…..roughly three months of the DoD’s annual budget back then. A one-time expenditure. Or a tiny fraction of what we’re going to spend on that dud, F35. Switzerland’s tax burden for their extraordinary nationwide shelter program is $38 per person per year. They have shelters for 125% of their population. While I don’t agree with everything in this article, it does highlight the key features of their national defense strategy…..actually defending the population. http://original.antiwar.com/bwalker/2012/02/01/how-the-swiss-opted-out-of-war/ It would be extremely difficult to conquer Switzerland, since they don’t have centralized military facilities to seize, and they are famously armed at home with their trusty Sig 550 assault rifles. As they say, “We don’t have an army. We ARE the army.”
Knowing my country will never field a shelter program, We built several shelters and stocked them for our own families, and for many friends. I’ve now build them professionally. We learned our trade from a half-dozen nuclear weaponeers, among them Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, Edwin York, Conrad Chester, and others. Our main ranch shelter is shown in Pic 1. It’s ten feet deep, and can survive within a few hundred meters of a nuclear explosion. We stock an 8 year supply of post-attack food and meds, since my experts inform me that the supply chain, and grid won’t be back for one to two decades. I’m working on more food. We have alternative energy and water processing on an industrial scale…..we laugh at the backpacker filter concept. : )
This great country affords everyone the opportunity to make their own choices. Most people spend their time looking for an excuse to lose. We prefer finding a way to win. Even if it means difficulty. I just hope the people who bet on “it will never happen” stick with the consequences of their choices, and not later, change their minds and put the burden of their support on the folks who chose otherwise.
We’re in the desert, so will not likely see direct weapons effects, even if we get into it with Putin and Xing. We expect fallout and EMP effects, mostly, in our area. Your mileage may vary! Inbound warheads having even slight navigational errors can goof by many miles at Mach 24.
We see the primary threat from NOKO as an EMP laydown, since they will never be able to approach the threat status of Russia or China. [the effects of a 20 kt explosion can be contained entirely within the boundaries of the Los Angeles International Airport, with the exception of the fallout] But a single EMP laydown will constitute a soft kill of the United States….90% of us (“you people out there”) will perish in the first year, post-grid loss. We’ll be having hash browns and pork chops, and hot showers. If NOKO hits ten or thirty American cities with their tiny nukes, the country will continue to have power, an economy (though things will get rough when the Dow implodes), lights, flush toilets, and food to eat. We’ll just be pissed off! I doubt NOKO will waste a warhead on a ground target when he can kill the entire country with a single attack in space.
But a single 10kt enhanced EMP device exploding over Kansas City at 500 km altitude, and we’re done as a post industrial, modern, military power. It’s hard to project military power when you can’t flush a toilet or make a phone call. Or eat. China can then make their moves in the Pacific Rim, and Putin can annex western Europe, and we’ll be a footnote in world history. NOKO, is merely the radical arm of Communist China…and Un doesn’t make a sound or pass gas unless Xing tells him to. The gang member in China’s pocket, useful for actually taking down the US with an EMP shot, only to be wiped out in succession while China “mourns” the demise of the United States. But we’ll be wiped out, too. With 300,000,000 people trying to find any clean water to drink, we’ll have three days to restore power and critical infrastructure. Won’t happen. In time. Later, the grid won’t have to be nearly as large….twenty million people don’t need much power. The Greens will love that.
See you tomorrow, on the air. Look at the bright side. If NOKO takes out our grid, transgender bathrooms won’t be the crisis we think it is right now. : )
My experts include the former chairman of the Congressional Commission To Assess The Threat of EMP To The United States, Dr. Lowell Wood. You can read his statement to the House Armed Services Committee in 2003, here: https://fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1999_h/99-10-07wood.htm Wood designed nuclear weapons for 35 years at Livermore and Los Alamos…..and was a protégé of Ed Teller. If you need more testimony, I can provide it. It’s not late-night AM radio trash. While I never worked up the nerve to take Wood’s photo (he was very conscious of his personal security, and I respected that. But Teller did let me take this pic at the lunch table. Pic 4. I’m holding the 8 x 11 print in my fingers here……I took this in the 1990s, before digital cameras were the norm. Minolta camera, Fuji film (remember film?). Our main mentor on weapons effects and shelter design was Edwin York pic 5, who filmed the Trinity shot and all other atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by the US. York devoted hundreds of hours of consultation on our behalf. Earned his Masters in nuclear engineering around 1955, and became more involved in weapon design, particularly fusing, arming, and safety systems. But also designed many shelter experiments at the Nevada Test Site. They’re all gone now…..the ones that actually did this stuff. It’s all theory to the folks at the national laboratories. None there have ever seen a nuclear explosion.
BTW, ask why Trump hasn’t shot down a single one of these launches in the boost phase, using an Arliegh Burke class destroyer. We talk tough, make stupid pledges we never keep, and allow our real enemies to spit in our faces. I’m sure we’ll watch that EMP device ride right over us and explode. Then we’ll have a whole new outlook on national defense, but it will be too late.
