The event has been compared with the 1980s' movie WarGames, which starred Matthew Broderick as a hacker who accesses a United States military supercomputer, nearly triggering a nuclear war
Would You Like To Play Global Thermonuclear War? G7 Leaders Take Part In WMD War Games (And The Good News Is, They Won!) -- Daily Mail
* Prime Minister, US president Barack Obama and other leaders took part
* Faced with a scenario involving terrorists getting hold of WMD
* Compared with the 1980s' movie WarGames, starring Matthew Broderick
* The summit is aimed at preventing the situation envisaged in the war game
David Cameron and his fellow world leaders at a major international summit today took part in a war game to test how they would react to an outbreak of nuclear terrorism.
At the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in The Hague the Prime Minister, US president Barack Obama and other leaders were faced with a nightmare scenario involving terrorists potentially getting hold of a weapon of mass destruction.
The organisers of the summit said the leaders were faced with a 'fictitious but realistic scenario' about the possibility of nuclear material going missing.
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Update: Merkel miffed at Barack Obama and David Cameron 'nuclear war game' -- The Telegraph
My Comment: Her is an easy prediction .... like war planning and war scenarios .... the planning for WMD terror threats will be discarded into a garbage can if it should ever become real. Germany's Merkel is probably right on this one.
2 comments:
You're absolutely wrong on this. This type of planning and exercise is completely overshadowed by the countless hours spent by planners, responders, and exercise developers who spend the time gaming all of the "what-ifs" so that they can provide a clear and concise suite of options for leaders to use.
This type of crisis response has to be more of a "muscle memory" than most people thing. The new, all-hazards approach to emergency response breaks down the response into two parts, a common set of actions that are used for all responses, and then the specialized actions that are taken once the type of incident is discovered.
It's the first set of actions that save the most lives and limit the damage. You have to practice and use them constantly for them to be effective.
The type of senior leaders exercise this talks about is usually viewed with a sense of derision since they figure most of the decisions have been made and there's no reason to be involved until the real thing occurs.
Merkel is wrong here, but that's okay, she has professionals on her team that will tell her what her options are.
These type of exercises are useful in a way because they "demystify" these weapons for the leaders, which will hopefully prevent a critical lag in decision making due to shock and fear and a lack of understanding of what they are dealing with.
Thank you Trevor for your comment. I love it when people disagree with me and take the time to write a response. This is how I learn. But on this issue .... let us say that I am still a skeptic.
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