Nice China-scare piece from Max Boot in the LA Times.

In his list of Chinese warmaking styles, though –

“financial warfare (subverting banking systems and stock markets), drug warfare (attacking the fabric of society by flooding it with illicit drugs), psychological and media warfare (manipulating perceptions to break down enemy will), international law warfare (blocking enemy actions using multinational organizations), resource warfare (seizing control of vital natural resources), even ecological warfare (creating man-made earthquakes or other natural disasters)”

– he misses one. Several years ago there was a study — there really was, I remember reading it — about the possibility of China conducting geological warfare.

This was in the Mao years, when China was very regimented, with loudspeakers everywhere. What would happen, the authors of the study wondered, if the entire population of China, on oudspeaker instructions, were all to jump off 3-ft high platforms at the same time? Would the seismic shock of 800 million folk all hitting the ground simultaneously be enough to start a seismic event?

The authors (I am working from memory) concluded that it wouldn’t. However, the Earth’s upper mantle has regular rhythmic movements. By having the 800 million repeatedly jump at precisely-timed intervals, you could “boost up”

these cycles, like a kid pumping up a swing, and even target the effect to created instability in the Earth’s crust at a selected region.

I am not making this up. I read it. Honestly.