A saturation MIRV nuking of the New York City CMA would kill all the major heads, first and second level management leadership of all the major American banks and financial institutions. This is akin to a leadership decapitation but to an extreme because it would also decapitate the subordinates and the subordinates subordinates. There is zero probability that the American financial system could avoid TOTAL destruction within weeks given the physical destruction of the financial heartland and probable 95%+ death toll of the financial leadership+subordinates+subordinates subordinates in Manhattan and Stamford, CT. The NYSE and Nasdaq, the world's 1st and 2nd largest stock exchanges, would be destroyed, which would cause a worldwide chain reaction within 24 hours resulting in a worldwide financial catastrophe that would make the Great Depression look like histories greatest economic boom. My earlier estimate of a $20+ trillion financial loss was exceedingly optimistic.
Noded backup of financial data in this situation would be useless, first because interbank transactional accounting would be destroyed and down for who knows how long since all the important people would be dead. Second, nothing would be able to stem the tide anyways as panic engulfed everything immediately while people like you waited for the IT staffs of every effected financial organization to fix things. The latter of course would be absolutely impossible. Financial transactions, accounting and markets are all operating in real time, are international and interdependent.. As well, the longer time passes, the more discrepancies begin to distort the picture. Restoring financial data in this scenario is not like restoring your files after your computer crashes. LOL
The United States as a nation would be unrecognizable a few short months after a MIRV nuclear attack on the New York City CMA. That's the whole point of MAD deterrence. It was never about scorching every square inch of an opponents soil but rather about mutual terror to prevent a nuclear exchange to begin with. What I find disturbing about that guy saying China should nuke every single country surrounding it, if China were nuked by only 1 opponent, is that this sort of opinion was popular back in the Cold War days, think the movie "War Games"....where strategists theorized that WWIII would engulf the world as soon as a single nuclear exchange began between 2 individual enemies. In today's world, the sorts of military pacts that made these Cold War scenarios possible no longer exist, especially in China's case. To insinuate that nuclear countries should randomly nuke countries so they don't take over the spoils is very childish and just plain stooopid.
It is always entertaining reading crap like this.
First...How did al-Qaeda succeeded on 9/11?
Because the US was
LESS concerned of a non-state agent using unconventional means of attacks than of state led or even merely sponsored assaults on US using conventional weapons.
After 9/11, the US government initiated a program of ensuring the financial data integrity of the American economy by demanding brokerages and banks to have off-site data record backups on non-electronic media like CD/DVD in what is called 'crisis proof' storage methods similar to hardened bomb shelters and along with them non-electronic -- paper -- documentations outlining procedures on how to
RESUME business once said crisis is over. The issue is not about real-time continuation of finance and commerce but about preservation of fundamental data that enable modern day business and international trade. So yes, there will be the inevitable data loss of the immediate business transactions at the moment of attack -- assuming a surprise attack -- but the foundation of the modern economy is
ALREADY preserved.
Which lead us to the Second point...Were there signs that Hitler was going to attack Poland?
Germany's
blitzkrieg was more about the technical aspects of a military operation than it was about the political nature of Hitler's Germany. Europe was already nervous of a militant Germany, especially after Hitler became Chancellor.
So is it likely that a
SURPRISE decapitation strike can be inflicted upon US? No.
Inter-state relations will signal tensions and signs leading to an armed conflict long before a state can order highly controlled and technically demanding weapons like nuclear missiles to be launched. Part of the reason why al-Qaeda succeeded was because no one consider an airliner to be a weapon and we still do not so consider. The US government already had 'Continuity Of Government' (COG) procedures long before 9/11, which includes continuity of the economy once the military crisis has passed.
Just as a political leadership decapitation strike will not collapse the government, as in when JFK was assassinated, an economic decapitation strike will not collapse the American economy, especially when there are procedures in place for that possibility and when there are increased economic and financial data security procedures currently in play behind the scenes. Inter-state tensions that could lead to war between nuclear powers like a hypothetical US against China will have those procedures activated and data retention and security accelerated.
In this hypothetical nuclear exchange between US and China, China does not have nuclear parity to ensure that the US will not survive. The Internet was designed to survive a nuclear war and as long as electricity exist, preserved vital economic data will restart the US economy while China will be locked out of that method. We will be victorious and resume driving automobiles while the Chinese will quite near literally 'nuked' back to the Stone Age. Or may be Bronze.