Aftermath of a biotoxic and chemical war on America and other crisis scenarios

Welcome to a hypothetical scenario situation where we discuss about the devastating effects of global biotoxic and chemical war in a dark and disturbing fashion. The hypothetical situation right now Iranian biotoxic and chemical attack on the United States of America. To fully discuss it, we need to speak in a in-depth form and a military style.

Don't worry if you're paranoid, just say it's just a fictional scenario similar to The Day After, Film/Threads and conspiracy thriller movies.

1979

The Iranian Revolution reaches its climax as the Iran hostage crisis and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini causes the Shah and several like-minded people to escape to the United States and the government loses grip in Iran. Weapons researchers who chose to stay in Iran are recruited into secret government projects involving NBC warfare and R&D departments.

1985

Iran-Contras affair started when senior administrators of the Reagan Administration started selling weapons to Iran in hopes that Iran push the Hezbollah in Lebanon and fund the Contras in Nicaragua to free US hostages. However this went awry when they started secretly selling $10 million missile-cloaking computer chip, blueprints of V-bomber warplane and ingredients of biotoxic germs to Iran.

1986

Desperate to win the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranian government increasingly supports the development of biotoxic and chemical weapons to kill large amounts of Iraqi soldiers and civilians. Anthrax and chlorine is first synthesized in the secret labs in Qeshm as alleged by Iraqi and US spies.

1991

December 26 was time when the Soviet Union dissolves itself due to endless economic and political troubles. Disillusioned Soviet officials and general started to take advantage of the instability by stealing weapons delivery systems and selling it to Iran was alleged by US spies.

Build-up

2012

Using recently purchased samples of biotoxic agents and barrels of industrial chemicals, Iranian government begins the mass synthesis of biotoxic agents and chemical gases under the disguise that it was made for legitimate purposes due to the fact, it has a large medical and chemical industry.

2013

Iran tests its first ICBM codenamed by the CIA as Hawk in Qeshm, believed to be designed to deliver biotoxic and chemical agents in a wide distance. Further discoveries include the mass production of Hazmat suits and gas masks designed for military use only, probably for WMD exercises. // In response the US government enforces the embargo and sanctions against Iran for it despite going against the wishes of the United Nations Council. Iranian President Ahmadineijad denies such allegations despite secretly supporting the experiments and exercises.

2015

Construction of several missile silos and radar stations initiated, especially focused on Iranian Azerbaijan, Ardabil and Gilan provinces. This also time where several military exercises involving armed submarines and a Iranian bomber plane based on the combination of British V-bomber and US planes codenamed Gryphon by the CIA. // Mass immunization of officials and soldiers against biotoxic agents have begun. Several military aircraft and naval vessels are designated to carry tons of biotoxic and chemical weapons are alleged by the CIA, believing it was designed to attack the US.

2016

One of the most horrible revelations is that Iran designed a ballistic missile containing several cocktails of biotoxic and chemical agents in its warhead. Further allegation of CIA spies and Iranian defectors whistleblowed that it was covered by a missile masking microchip designed to make missiles invisible to missile detection systems. // A horrible realization reeks in the White House. In the Pentagon, government officials frantically discussed and debated on the unthinkable scenario they have to do. From the conclusion of the secret meeting, they designed a highly classified and devastating war plan codenamed Unthinkable Operation Against Iranian Aggression.

The real shifting point would be that all this build up was a feint - with all the intelligence resources and assets focusing on a trans-pacific missile assault on the West coast, either via direct launch or using proxy allies in the Pacific Island states or Korean Peninsula, instead the Iranian Espionage agencies are more insidious.

Several batches of toxin are instead smuggled onto US soil and moved to heavily populated but deprived areas of the USA - these areas, already riddled with state corruption, limited oversight and stretched Police and Federal agencies, do not spot the interlopers, who are able to move around using several compromised Nationals - the Iranians, operating via intermediaries who think they are actually working for Federal or "Revolutionary" US elements, are manipulated into contaminating water supplies, food supplies and blood stocks.

This occurs during the flu vaccine season of 2017. The result is a sudden spike in mortality rates at senior and juvenile age.

Additionally, as the country moves to try to combat this sudden shocking rise in infant mortality, several deprived cities are hit by chemical attacks in densely populated areas: home made mustard gas devices, spore bombs and VX deployments in areas with metro systems.

The attacks are simultaneous, but carried out by independent cells, all unknowingly operating off of a timetable set by the Iranian espionage agencies.

the attacks render several major city centres off limits and cause panicked evacuations. Federal agencies are quick to respond and manage to round up several perpetrators. However, due to their disparate nature of grievances, no common thread is immediately identified. Al Qaeda naturally claim responsibility. The NSA, CIA and FBI get into a jurisdictional debate over who should be leading the investigations, which causes a delay in effective response and following leads.

Is that the sort of thing you're after, or more date breakdown? At work, so haven't got time for a breakdown of which military assets or specific agencies would be involved / compromised!

I'll explain that tomorrow. It will be about the breakout of global biotoxic and chemical war between the United States of America and Iran.

Four problems:

First, industrial production of medicine and chemicals is necessarily tightly regulated and inspected. How would they disguise the production of biological and chemical weapons?

Second, the rather stiff sanctions imposed on Iran prior to 2012 would make it unlikely that they could acquire an ICBM, let alone manufacture one in the next year. (The ever-present threat of further sanctions would make a biological or chemical weapons program also difficult.) Why would they bother?

Third, Israel is a whole heck of a lot closer to Iran than the US. Why would they dump money into a ICBM program, which would basically loudly advertise their desire to threaten far-off countries, when practically everyone knows their main enemies are regional? (When you have beef with someone on your block, you usually don't pick fights with an entire town in the next state over.)

Fourth, why would the ICBM testing be allowed to continue, upon discovery in 2013? Additionally, why would the US only write up UOAIA two years after it learned about those tests?

Besides the plotting issues, intercontinental delivery of biological or chemical weapons is kinda pointless, for reasons too numerous to mention, and it'd be a huge ask for a brand-new missile program besides. It'd be far easier - and cheaper - to simply smuggle in those weapons and deploy them near-manually (this is in fact what real-world intelligence agencies keep an eye open for). What lead to the ICBM stratagem?

( The CDC is actually pretty good at working through public contamination events. Evacuating a major city due to an acute situation is basically impossible. Law enforcement will notice and prioritize investigation of obvious coordination in such attacks, and immediately not care at all about disparate grievances; the coordination is the common thread. Al-Qaeda doesn't have, and has never had, the ability to coordinate that kind of attack; even if they did claim responsibility, no one in authority would take it seriously. FBI would have jurisdiction, as it is a law enforcement agency; DHS would in theory coordinate.)

To Deus Denuo.

The main point of the Alternate History thread is to discuss about the aftermath of a global biotoxic and chemical war on American soil.

Now let's get back to the main story.

17 January 2017
Iran launches several biotoxic and chemical tipped warheads armed in several submarines out of the ports of Hormozgan and Baluchestan.

The Oman Navy sends a report to Saudi Arabia about the situation. In response, Saudi Arabia calls the United States for aerial supremacy over Iran.

18 January 2017
The Iranian military commences a buildup in the Strait of Hormuz, with the intention of intimidating Saudi Arabia and their allies to withdraw. US air support arrive to support Oman and Saudi Arabia in the event of violence breaks out.

Radar stations in Iran are increasingly aggressive as tensions rise. Iranian rocket bases reveal their purpose, aiming at several cities in the United States of America. An American airstrike formation shadows over Hormuz as the brink of conflict starts to warm.

19 January 2017
A combined air fleet and paratrooper divisions are stationed in Musandam Governate as Iran increasingly threatens. An alarming armed conflict is building up. Iran deploys Fajr-5 artillery missile and Bina missile bombing raids from Qeshm to preemptively attack troops and aircraft stationed at Musandam.

In swift retaliation, the American airstrike formation flies towards Qeshm to destroy the rocket bases and annihilate any retaliation by Iran. However, the formation is shot down by Scud formations in Qeshm's beaches, to deny any American attempt of air superiority.

Rocket bases and radar stations increasingly becomes armed as the confrontation escalates. Submariens and aircrat carriers containing the warhead missiles start arriving at their targeted destination They wait for the signal sent by the Iranian Minister of War to launch those biotoxic and chemical warhead missiles.

20 January 2017
All of the missile bases and rocket launchers are ready to be armed and launched at 7:00 pm during the ongoing escalation in which the US demands Iran to back down with their warheads and ICBMs. In that single moment, the Iranian Airforce dispatches their warhead bombers and false flag bombers disguised as commercial aircraft armed with the warheads.

Off the coast of Venezuela, Iranian submarines and ships are refueled as they prepare to enter USA waters via Cuba which is persuaded by President Hugo Chavez to allow it, feeling the Cuban embargo by America has threatened their economy.

They wait for the order to launch a full-blown biotoxic and chemical attack on the USA by tomorrow.

Then perhaps actually call it an alternate history thread next time.

Be all that as it may, there are so many technical issues with the scenario that you're describing, that it's difficult to picture this situation. What happened to NATO, for one, and how completely asleep was the Fifth Fleet between 2013-17 for another.

In this alternate history, NATO was taking care of the violent Second Crimean War due to Russian aggression and annexation. The Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf was endlessly threatening the Iranian Navy to stop those ICBM tests.

Now to continue about the global biotoxic and chemical war breaking out after I take a break.

Deus Denuo

If the general scenario is war between the US and Iran I think a nuclear attack on port cities like the one described above is way more likely, even with NATO asleep at the wheel. Nuclear weapons are just more convenient for an attack like that, they'd have a larger and more reliable effect than a chemical or biological weapon, be easier and safer to deliver, and could potentially produce the same fears in a civilian population if the bombs were particular dirty.

As far as the aftermath, I find it hard to believe that the outcome would be anything but annihilation for Iran. The US wouldn't take an attack like that lying down, and Iran presents a uniformed target that the US military could just about go to town on. Not to say it would be an easy war, or that it wouldn't leave that region utterly screwed for decades and decades to come, but I think it's likely we'd roll through their government in a similar manner as in Iraq in 2003.

Biotoxic and Chemical War Breakout

21 January 2017
By 6:00 am, the Iranian ships and submarines are refueled. The Venezuelan and Cuban Navy joins forces as they arm themselves with biotoxic and chemical warheads from Iran and self-produced. Iranian Gryphon warhead bombers are en route to destination of several Western US cities.

8:00 am. The combined Iranian, Venezuelan and Cuban fleet armed with biotoxic and chemical warheads codenamed the Miasma Fleet imposes a navel blockade all throughout the West Coast of the United States. Gryphon Bombers start arming their weapons to prepare for a destructive biotoxic and chemical bombing raid.

10:08 am. Admiral of the Miasma Fleet and Strategic Rocket Commander receives orders and launch codes from the Iranian Minister of War to attack the United States. Then the Rocket Defense Commander orders a full-scale first strike on the United States, launching thousands of ICBMs and warheads from military bases and ballistic rocket launchers in Iran.

Simultaneously the Admiral allows the launching of the ballistic warhead missiles and all warplanes to lift off to attack the Western Cities. Submarines launch every missile from their armory to unleash a barrage.

Gryphon warhead bombers and false flag bombers arrive at the West Coast cities as they prepare to drop several biotoxic and chemical warheads at high altitude, in which they are disguised via the radar-cloaking chip and difficult to attack.

By 10:09, NORAD does not report any aircraft or warheads heading straight to the Western cities due to the Iranian missile-cloaking chip.

@Deus Deso

Good points RE: the infrastructure and the resilience of the Federal agencies. I think for any disruption like that to occur, you'd have to have a further weakening of various departments. So, if this is an AU, perhaps the GOP has gone even harder on minimising things like FEMA and the CDC - introducing new privatised agencies, which has broken up things like consistency along statelines.

More complexity equals more points to break it.

And whilst a nuke is more effective, it's probably more notable - either by delivery method or size.

Chem weapons can probably be made on US soil. And remember - what's the goal of the Iranians? Is it a political play; an attempt to destabilise the US; does the initiative come from the central Irianian government, or the revolutionary guard faction?

Attack

The first missile hits Miami, Florida. It detonates on impact, causing thousands of deaths due to the cocktail of hydrogen cyanide, mustard gas, VX and phosgene. Increasing missile strikes and aerial bombardment causes thousands more to die.

Toxic dust comprised of ricin, BZ, anthrax and sarin settles over New Orleans dropped by disguised Iranian aircraft. People get infected by the anthrax bacteria as the chemical and biotoxins enter their body, poisoning them lethally. Infrastructure is annihliated by missile strikes and shell droppings.

What do you think? Do you know any other effects on US cities on the East Coast during the attack by Iran?

No, for any of that to occur, the US would have had to devolve into total anarchy following 9/11. What's that show called, "Revolution"? Something like that, but limited to the US.

The main problem with using an ICBM program in this scenario is that they get designed around a specific payload. The whole point of an ICBM is to get its payload to another facet of the planet in a hurry. Accuracy is generally not an issue, beyond 'metropolitan area', as the payload is usually a massive area effect device. They are deployed when whole cities need to disappear in a hurry, no matter what conditions in the target area (weather, density, utilities, population, etc.) are like.

Biological and/or chemical weapons, on the other hand, are basically useless if the conditions aren't right in a really specific area. The most powerful ones are in the class of 'one drop = death' - which sounds impressive, and it is, but can be also be thwarted by tactical maneuvers known as accidentally dodging a specific drop of liquid or accidentally breathing air outside a very specific 10x10x10 area.

Setting aside difficulty of use, they're considerably more expensive to deploy with measurable success than, say, an explosive of equivalent volume. This is why you occasionally hear about explosives taking down jet liners, and not biological/chemical weapons.

But say one got developed, deployed, detonated, and properly dispersed its payload. Few people would die, and the greater issue would be environmental contamination - again, limited to very specific areas, and possibly not even an issue depending on how those substances break down over time. It'd make more sense to spread asbestos or lead dust or mercury, really, since they stick around for practically forever.

Overall... this whole scenario only works if Iran suddenly found itself with a big enough GDP that it didn't ever need to worry about the US, as it would then be considered a valuable partner in economic trade. So again: there's no justification for any of it, and that makes it all really impossible to spin out an even semi-realistic scenario without the sentence "And then their winged rainbow unicorn divisions attacked" being just as accurate a description.

So what would be the realistic or semi-realistic scenario in your own version?

Can we try making a more ICBM-less version?

On the chemical side, yes - which is why gas or chemical devices are usually only effective in metro systems or enclosed internal spaces (limiting their effectiveness as widespread terror weapons, without an entire artillery division delivering them)

I think enough fracturing and divisiveness in an AU at political level could have caused breakdowns in process. I'm afraid to say no governmental intelligence apparatus is entirely infallible. Most "terrorists" are non-professional, poorly trained amateurs. They are not spycraft trained SM Es sponsored by government agencies - in the UK, our security services have foiled a lot of potential attacks - due in part to the ineptness of those involved and the fact that committing to an atrocity AND finding people who won't bottle it is hard.

Now, in an AU setting, some suspension of disbelief is probably needed. But imagine if the Patriot Act had a few contradictory clauses in it, say over the jurisdiction of agencies; or a few lobbyists managed to get heir way for short term concessions from the CDC and managed to accidentally break the end to end supply chain.

It doesn't need to be a revolution - the USA isn't so grandiose that its bureaucracy can't make errors (See: Flint's water supply; the handling of Detroit; current casualty rates of shootings - but that's for the RL politics thread.)

Now, a bio attack is very inefficient. Incredibly. Also, most nation states have nothing to gain by antagonising the US - it buggers up trade and (As you pointed out) runs the risk of the US going all sleeping giant on them. But imagine if a nation state WAS suddenly possessed by a madness that thought it COULD cripple the USA, for whatever crazy economic reason. So, now you have an intelligence agency not involved in just industrial espionage and spying but active sabotage.

Now, obviously, most nation states just try to influence each others politics (See the current social media storm activity and claims of proxy bot nets from China / Russia) but in this AU it seems we've got someone going Tom Clancy in their methods. A few short sighted policy changes to give an in, a few well placed, trained espionage agents from a hostile nation state and some proxy operators... then bam.

Yeah, to cripple the WHOLE USA, or even a city - that's a task for a military or a conventional assault, just on scale alone. But you could cause a panic, or a localised economic slump.

For a chemical attack made by Iran on the US, I believe the most likely scenario would be a terrorist-style attack. A conventional military assault on the continental US is likely to fail for a variety of reasons, and risks bringing the US down on whichever country makes the attack. A terrorist attack would give a level of deniability conventional attacks don't have.

If the DNI was never established after 9/11 and there was general divisiveness in the federal government inter-agency cooperation would be at a minimum, enabling any plot to move forward easier. The precursors to chemical weapons could be carefully shipped in, assembled in secret, and then released in major metropolitan areas to cause panic. If there was a massive chemical attack in downtown NY, for example, it could shut down a lot of the financial infrastructure that's there and cause damage that way, as mentioned above.

The scenario I imagine here would be this: Precursors are brought in to the US through ports and air freight, lightly guarded due to budget cuts across the federal government. Any suspicions go unreported to the FBI and CIA, leaving those agencies unable to connect any chatter they've picked up to events on the ground. They remain focused on reports of Iranian weapons development. Iranian cells conduct multiple waves of chemical attacks across the US, crippling financial centers and panicking the public. A lack of cooperation between foreign and domestic intelligence agencies leaves the federal government scrambling, and in the face of ongoing attacks they freeze markets and deploy the national guard to major population centers. Civil and financial unrest follows, leading to chaos.

I think the question here is what goal the Iranians have. Their major policy objectives today as far as we know are limited to the Middle East, and largely centered around reinforcing and strengthening their regime. Going after the US has the potential to backfire badly, meaning they'd have to have a very specific objective or be doing it for ideological reasons.

It could be to remove the US from the table in terms of ME interference, allowing them to go on the offensive against say, Saudi Arabia, or Israel. Weirdly, the strike on the USA would be a distraction assault to wrap the Americans up in internal strife, further pushing them towards a constrained, isolationist policy.

If they were somehow more Chess Master like, they could false flag the op to look like it was sponsored by someone else - likely Saudi, who have form in sponsoring external actors.

But it'd be a huge gamble, hoping that at no stage ANY of this would be caught.

Well, it depends on what your goal is, as an author. If you have in mind a story that takes place in the aftermath of a widespread disaster on American soil, then go ahead and tell it. What caused the disaster and the details leading up to it are of secondary importance. If your story takes place during the build-up, then you just have to accept that your story is basically a fantasy, and run with it. Create an alternate universe where Iran is powerful enough (and/or the US is weak enough) that the two are militarily relatively equal. Dont worry about getting the military minutia objectively correct, because realistically the scenario you have described has a nearly zero chance of happening.

Then again, if you absolutely have your heart set on a semi-realistic continent wide disasterous attack on the US, forget chem weapons and use genetically tailored biological agents instead. That can be introduced very secretly in major US domextic airports and other public areas, and with any luck the disease will have spread across the country before the CDC gets wind of it. Still pretty unlikely, but if you present it with sufficient skill you can preserve enough verisimilitude to make the story work.