Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

This could be a problem

I have long wondered why people who want to cause chaos and disruption -- terrorists of any stripe, or nutjobs, or foreign adversaries -- don't use a little imagination. Setting off bombs or driving into crowds or shooting people is effective, certainly, but there are ways to cause very big trouble that cost very little and probably won't get you caught.

Flying drones over airports is one of them. You could cause economic catastrophe by doing this in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. You could go away for a couple of days and then come back -- they would never know when you were coming. You could intentionally fly one right in the path of a plane taking off or landing, and this possibility makes the tactic impossible to ignore and means you can't re-open the airport with any confidence.

There are a lot of comparable asymmetrical warfare tactics that people oddly avoid. I don't want to give people ideas, you can use your own imagination. Not that we need one more thing to worry about . . . 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...


Merry Christmas to you, Mr. Cervantes, and to all of your readers. Remember the "reason for the season".

I don't always agree with you, but in all cases, I think you're a stand-up guy and I'll listen to what you have to say.


Cervantes said...

Thanks, but as you must know I'm not Christian. Still, I try to look for the good in an occasion that has become largely an orgy of commercials and consumerism, alas.