Terrorism Future Scenario

A major problem facing the intelligence community today is the inventiveness to think up what terrorists could do next.  In fact, the government has turned to Hollywood in the past for ideas.  In SRA 211, Prof. Shemanski mentioned that a Mexican Drug Cartel had built, from scratch, a submarine capable of transporting drugs to the US.  This got me thinking about how terrorists could build upon this success.

Imagine, if you will, a South American terrorist group is as successful as the Drug Cartel in creating an operable submarine.  Now that they have the technology, they increase involvement in the drug trade to raise more money and try to lay low for a while.  Over the years the group accrues enough money to build five more submarines and learns how to load enough payload into them to cause a decent explosion.  Also during this time, they send members of the group to work on docs in the US Gulf Coast in order to gather intelligence about Oil tankers.

So, we have a terrorist group that fell off the radar for a few years as they focused on drugs, integration in the US, and submarine building.  All of a sudden the six submarines leave port, each with one man apiece, and head for the US.  Using this website, and intelligence gathered by those working at the docs, the submarines head directly for oil supertankers destined for US ports.  The submarines navigate in groups of two, striking three supertankers twice each.  The explosion helps penetrate the tanker, and lights the Oil and the tanker ablaze.

Now, as the media coverage flourishes, the US is faced with two issues.  A lot of Oil has just been lost (Approx. One Million Dead Weight Tons), raising gas prices and dislodging the process that fuels America.  Also, consumer confidence in Oil dips, continuing to raise prices.  Second, the US now has a million tons of Oil proliferating into the Oceans, killing wildlife and tourism in the Gulf Coast.

The economic loss would be catastrophic.  Raised oil prices across the board, lack of confidence, and a major wildlife crisis grip the nation as it races to recover.  The group steps forward and claims responsibility and moves from a basically inactive non-threat to a major power in the terrorism community.

Maybe it seems a little out there, but who would have thought some of things that have happened could be possible before the fact?