The challenges to the staff who write The Daily are rising. You know the deal. It is possible that reference even to the most common of items or current topics could trip an algorithm some place with a lot of boxes. Make you pop up on some list of people who should get a visit from the authorities to ensure there is no disruptive activity in progress. That is the current use of the word ’cause’ and the effect of acting on it. We are not, of course, and just concerned with staying compliant.

Which we are, of course.

It is funny to mention, though, since the manuscript surfaced for the book about living in Seoul during the tumultuous year of 1980. The document contains various hysterical references “typed” more than forty years ago about living in a country undergoing a coup d’etat. That was an interesting year, and one of the terms of reference then was “non-mainstreaming.” By that term, people who disagreed with the incoming regime were selected for special treatment. We talked about it in the here-and-now after the Press Secretary in Washington identified people not in compliance with the Administration’s worthy goals as being extremists. Fair enough, we thought. That is the way these things seem to go in the progression of human social order.

Then, in the same conversation, we talked about the consequences of a Great Power using the weapons of a different war to enhance settlement of a newer one. We had been into the topic, at least in parts, for several weeks. The consensus was that speaking about use of those sorts of weapons was acceptable only in a sort of surreal manner. No rational person would consider such behavior, right? And yet there the matter lies, right in the middle of the table. We didn’t bring it up. We do not want to cause it or see the effects.

That aversion led, naturally, to discussions of doctrine and how “first use” might seem to be a logical step to some in the crisis spectrum. That was when we realized that we were actually weighing the chances that use of an atomic weapon might actually be under consideration. That was a little un-nerving, since those with experience in such matters were veterans of the Single Integrated Operational Planning (SIOP) process and remembered what it was like to be part of it. If you don’t share that experience, it includes earnest discussions of the elements of the Strategic Triad. That includes use of heavy bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the ones in the bellies of those submarines, sliding invisibly beneath the waves.

The employment of those systems is a big deal. In the Cold War, it was only two powers with the capability to do so. The matter at hand in Eastern Europe doesn’t seem to merit that End of the World, but the fact that such use was being discussed as a “no bluff” option made us nervous. That we were having a discussion about things that could prompt tactical use of part of the family of horror weapons suggested we were in serious territory indeed.

The EMP thing was the one that chimed a lot of bells. “Electro-Magnetic Pulse” are three words that go into an old abbreviation. It was in the nature of a “collateral effect” expected in an atomic exchange. They refer to the effect of an atomic detonation in the atmosphere, not on the ground. That explosion produces a burst of energy with devastating effect on electric circuits. By that, we mean just about everything from the phone in your pocket to the car you would like to drive. All of those machines would be literally fried in their little computer boards.

The talk is not about a collateral effect, but an EMP detonation for its own sake. It would be something different and smaller than traditional blasts. It would not necessarily meet the threshold of horror, by some estimates. Those could be incorrect. So the panel of experts is unsettled.

This can’t be happening, right? Didn’t we learn about cascades of mistakes and erroneous estimates in school? Are we about to learn an entirely new one?

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com