[swaghauler]

Another thing I would consider in a new timeline was brought up by Schone23666. Biowarfare. What if China, North Korea, Iran or Russia decided to engage in a clandestine bioattack. It would work like this. Instead of using a "weaponized" virus (which is easily ID'd); China decides to infect several major US & European cities with Plague or Avian Flu by contaminating several public areas with normal strains of these viruses. The goal here is ECONOMIC DAMAGE, NOT CASUALTY CREATION. We would be able to contain and treat such a covert "low intensity" attack and casualties could be 100K or less. The cost of containment and treatment could easily top $100K per patient for something like the Plague. This Economic Impact would be the goal of such a covert mission. Why? Because responding to the crisis at home would reduce the involved governments' ability to respond to China's actions in the Pacific Rim. Combined with "attacks" designed to crash our stock markets; This would be an effective way to reduce US power abroad. If China, Iran, and Russia were coordinating their efforts, we could be under extreme pressure in a very short time frame. This would act like a "force multiplier" for their aggressive military actions. China would be my first worry. Russia is more "advanced" in biowarfare, but China does have the facilities in Mongolia (first used by Japan during WW2) and it is farther away from the US & Europe (isolation IS protection in Biowarfare). I have heard that the Plague outbreak that caused a city of 30K in China to be quarantined last year was "suspicious" in nature (an accident in R&D?).