The Most Valuable Real Estate in Nuclear Terror Era

Real Estate locations, which are the least vulnerable to a nuclear terror attack, may become the most valuable and secret properties of the future. It is impossible to predict when and where such an attack may take place but current politics and technology combine to create a climate increasingly conducive to nuclear terror blackmail. Yet there are few provisions to protect businesses, non-government organizations (NGO’s) or populations at large, from the effects of such disasters.

Nuclear disarmament initiatives and conferences create an illusion that the danger of nuclear conflict is receding. This may be true as far as state-controlled nuclear weapons are concerned. At least 30 countries refrained from developing their own “nuclear deterrent” in previous years lulled into security by promises of protection by the United States. That kind of political luxury seems to have come to an end. Despite continuing proliferation in other countries, US foreign policy of progressive nuclear disarmament is setting it up as a prime target for nuclear terror blackmail. Welcome to the age of nuclear insecurity.

Continuity of Government (COG) programs at federal, state and even local levels do exist. Secret shelter areas and evacuation procedures are designed to take care of selected leaders and bureaucrats but average businessmen, city dwellers, suburbanites and country folk are not included. The main issue for a small business or organization is to make sure it survives and continues to operate when confronted with a nuclear terror situation. This means early selection and relocation to places where nuclear terror effects are the least likely to occur.

There are numerous emergency survival programs designed to come into play when hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or earthquakes take place. Most of such events and their paths are predictable. Nuclear terror is a man-made disaster. It is unpredictable, and besides destruction of infrastructure it also brings electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and radiation issues into play. These would eliminate communications and incapacitate any products based on microchips such as cell phones, radios, TVs, autos and all computers. Deadly radiation could contaminate huge areas of countryside and productive agricultural land for a long time.

In the search for relatively secure properties, fallout radiation plumes and predominant weather patterns must be taken into account. These will determine if a business location is on a potential fallout path or near a target where it will suffer damage from the EMP effects. Such advance analysis yields alternatives for relocation of critical facilities to areas with minimal nuclear terror vulnerabilities where independent backup databases can be maintained. Operations duplicated in more secure areas would provide Continuity of Business (COB), if primary facilities are made inoperative.

Better security measures, designed to discover and prevent terrorism as such, may in fact accelerate nuclear terror as the only weapon in the hands of determined insurgent organizations with political agendas. If it is made impossible to launch conventional terror attacks, they will look to nuclear blackmail as the most effective means to get results. United States, promoting human rights and democracy, is the obvious choice for such threats.

The world is edging toward nuclear terror. It’s no longer a question of if, but when, where, and how it will happen. America, the hope and envy of the world, is the preferred target, yet in popular politics nuclear terror as a subject is taboo. The reason is simple. Authorities are helpless as far as average businesses and ordinary citizens are concerned. That is why you should take the initiative to plan ahead and minimize the risk.

There are over 40 ongoing conflicts in the world where minority populations are struggling against “oppressive” governing majorities. Such political struggles have been under way for centuries but never before did they have a nuclear blackmail alternative. After development of nuclear weapons by a pipsqueak country like North Korea it is clear that clandestine nuclear proliferation is very much alive and ticking.

What is misleading is the fact that countries are promoting disarmament and tightening security measures all over the world in the belief that this will minimize or eliminate the threat. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As it becomes more difficult to obtain freedom or autonomy, for so-called oppressed minorities, they will sooner or later realize that only possession and blackmail with a nuclear weapon will bring them to the attention of those who can make a difference. History teaches us that traitors and proxy states in third countries can be used to develop, smuggle or launch nuclear weapons. The Cuban missile crisis is a perfect example of nuclear blackmail that successfully threatened the United States.

New York, Washington, and major government and finance centers are believed to be the main target areas of terrorists. On the other hand nuclear terror blackmail may be employed by more sophisticated insurgents demanding that United States pressures other governments to liberate oppressed minorities. In order to do that it is necessary to keep intact administrative structures and foreign policy systems. As a result nuclear terror may be threatened or demonstrated in other places like Las Vegas, Houston or San Francisco. Particularly vulnerable are also locations near Minuteman sites, stealth bomber bases, and naval facilities servicing nuclear submarines as well as command, control and communications centers that acquire intelligence and provide retaliation capabilities.

As a start businesses and organizations must determine if their headquarters or major facilities exist near a potential nuclear terror target. Once these are identified businesses can relocate to more secure locations. Realtors will be well advised to develop experts and consultants knowledgeable in nuclear terror geopolitics and survival technologies. There are independent emergency survival groups sprouting up all over the country and those may be a good source of information about secure locations, supplies and procedures. This may also be an opportune time to initiate a national Real Estate Nuclear Terror Survival (RENTS) organization to service the whole industry in North America.