{"id":5401,"date":"2022-03-06T08:10:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T13:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5401"},"modified":"2022-03-06T08:19:36","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T13:19:36","slug":"lights-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/03\/06\/lights-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Lights Out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Out of Bounds<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are lots of places where it seems to be a bad idea to \u201cwage war\u201d.  Nursery schools and playgrounds ought to be \u201cout of bounds\u201d when it comes to bombs, artillery, and even ground fighting.  Two Ukrainian teenagers killed last week, hit by artillery fire, just playing soccer on a practice field.  Why target the places where it\u2019s likely to find children, and put them in the line of fire?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are the traditional places, the ones that the original Geneva Conventions agreed to keep safe:  hospitals and civilian shelters.  Remember the World War II movies with the white hospital ships with the big red crosses painted on their sides?  There was always outrage when torpedoes from either side accidentally found their mark. It happened far too frequently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way to try to protect targets was to move prisoners onto the site of enemy action.  It worked sometimes \u2013 though the American pilots held in Hiroshima weren\u2019t so lucky.  It always came down to one of those \u201cgood of the many versus good of the few\u201d things.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe rules\u201d say don\u2019t bomb churches, or historic sites . That didn\u2019t work last week at the Babi Yar Memorial in Kyiv. The United States didn\u2019t drop an atomic bomb on Kyoto, Japan, because of the cultural and historic importance of the city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nuclear Playgrounds<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It would seem logical that one of the highest \u201cprotected\u201d priorities would be nuclear power plants. It’s just common sense: having a battle around a nuclear reactor is just a terrible idea.  Nuclear power plant safety is based around a series of protections from radioactive leaks, called \u201ccontainment\u201d.  Containment is literal \u2013 concrete structures designed to contain radiation leaks, and even some level of explosions that contain nuclear material.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bombs, bullets, shoulder mounted missiles:  all of those things can damage the containment barriers that keep the outside world safe from nuclear materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if the containment facilities aren\u2019t damaged, the nuclear power process is based around keeping extremely hot (temperature) nuclear materials from literally becoming \u201ctoo hot to handle\u201d. If nuclear materials are allowed to interact too fully, they will reach a temperature when no material can contain then.  It\u2019s called a \u201cmeltdown\u201d \u2013 when the nuclear core becomes so hot it melts through everything holding it \u2013 going down into the ground.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contamination<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That is, until it hits ground water, which explosively turns to steam and blow the core apart.  The blast spreads nuclear material across a widespread area.  How widespread?  When the Chernobyl reactor (just north of Kyiv) partially melted down, the area downwind was contaminated for a thousand miles.  Children in nearby Poland, and farther away Sweden, were given Iodine to protect their thyroids from radiation damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nuclear plants have multiple \u201cfailsafe\u201d systems that can either shield the nuclear materials to stop them from interacting, or cool a \u201ctoo hot\u201d nuclear core down.  Those systems are run from outside the \u201creactor\u201d chamber, so that even if power from the nuclear reactor is lost, they can still interact with the core to stop a runaway meltdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that, the containment, the shielding processes, and the cooling processes are vulnerable to military attack.   In addition, nuclear plants require continuous supervision to keep them in balance.  It\u2019s hard for the \u201csecond shift\u201d to show up to work when a battle is being waged around the plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lights Out<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So why is it that the Russian Army is not only fighting around nuclear plants (including the scene of the world\u2019s worst nuclear plant disaster, Chernobyl, just north of Kyiv) but targeting them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nuclear plants are huge industrial complexes. To build them, both road and railroad transportation is needed, capable of bringing in large machinery. That transportation ability makes it a prime staging area for troops: capture the plant, and capture the capability to use the transportation hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the five nuclear plants in Ukraine provide fifty percent of the nation\u2019s electric power.  The Russian Army already controls two of those, and is approaching the third.  One way to gain control of Ukrainian life, is to control the power \u2013 and the Russian Army moving in position to do it.  It\u2019s much harder for cities like Kharkiv and Kyiv to resist Russian occupation if they can\u2019t see what they\u2019re doing, or are required to use generator or battery power to maintain communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Special credit to Clint Watts, former FBI agent, US Army officer and a<\/em>n MSNBC analyst for<\/em> his lucid explanation of the military value of nuclear plants<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Base of Operations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Russian offensive clearly hasn\u2019t gone as planned.  What was supposed to be a \u201cblitzkrieg\u201d attack to de-capitate the Ukrainian government by swift capture of Kyiv didn\u2019t work out.  Part of this is because the Russians didn\u2019t anticipate Ukrainian resistance, part because of surprising incompetence from Russian forces.  So Putin\u2019s armies are regrouping, preparing for siege warfare against Kyiv, and a long drawn out fight against Ukrainian insurgents led by the charismatic Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They need a base of operations.  The Chernobyl site, and the newly captured Zaporizhzhia facility, are perfect (if you don\u2019t mind exposing your soldiers to dangerous radiation levels, particularly at Chernobyl).  There\u2019s lots of room, lots of power, and lots of transportation connections to the rest of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you decide to \u2013 you can turn out ALL the lights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine Crisis<\/p>\n\n\n\n