Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

82Brittle Powertrained in their use. Many types of high explosives can be homemade. 116Military explosives come in many varieties, some of which are invisible (liquidswhich soak into the soil) or can be so well disguised as to be recognizable onlyby experts. Military explosives and fuses are often available to terrorists,Soviet-made limpet mines have been routinely used to sabotage power facilitiesin southern Africa. 117 Nuclear explosives may also become available, and offerspecial capabilities which are considered separately in Chapter Eleven.•Aircraft. The same group that caused one death and six million dollars’ damagewith the homemade truck bomb at the University of Wisconsin had alsotried to sabotage a power station supplying a munitions plant, and had madean unsuccessful aerial attack in a stolen airplane against the same munitionsplant. 118 Fixed-wing aircraft have been used in several bombing attempts, particularlyin Northern Ireland. Helicopters have been used in jailbreaks in theU.S., 119 Mexico, and Eire, and by Pfc. Robert K. Preston in his 17 February1974 landing on the White House lawn. Palestinian terrorists have recentlyused even a hot-air balloon to enter Lebanon, and of course Nazi commandosoften used gliders with great success. Commercial and, on occasion, even militaryaircraft are hijacked throughout the world, and could be used for access,weapon delivery, or kamikaze attack. The remote control devices used by hobbyistscould probably be adapted to make sizable fixed-wing aircraft into pilotlessdrones, or similarly to operate boats or other vehicles by remote control.• Ships, small submersible vessels, and frogmen are undoubtedly available toterrorists. Ships carrying torpedoes, depth charges, and guided rockets may beavailable. Portable missiles can be fired even from a rowboat; one was firedfrom a speedboat in 1972 by Palestinian commandos against an Israel-boundLiberian oil tanker in the Red Sea straits between Ethiopia and Yemen. 120•Tanks and similar vehicles are sufficiently available at National Guard andArmy bases, where a wide variety of other sizable weapons have been stolenin the past, that it is not unrealistic to contemplate their hijacking. Some incidentsof this kind have already occurred. Just heavy construction equipment,which is commonly available to civilians and is frequently stolen from constructionsites, lends itself to adaptation, and could readily be armored towithstand the light-infantry arms issued to guards. In Louisiana in 1967, alarge construction crane was driven into three large transmission line towersto destroy them. 121 In July 1977, an earthmover struck a valve on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, spewing hot oil over five acres of tundra. 122•Other relevant equipment available to terrorists includes sophisticated communicationand interception equipment, electronic countermeasures systems forjamming or spoofing communication or guidance signals, radar, night visiondevices, industrial lasers for metal-cutting or other uses (a small handheld laser