Greek Fire

    Since the dawn of time man has been competitive.  Perhaps that is what has set him apart from the rest of the animal kingdom: Faster, farther, better - regardless of the endeavour.  This is especially true in warfare.  More efficient means of vanquishing the opponent has always found an audience: and so it was with Greek Fire.

    In the early days of the Greek city states and of the Roman Empire, the use of incendiaries in combat was rampant and the unpredictable nature of Greek Fire made it as hazardous to the employer as it was to the intended victim.  Yet, the ability to throw fire from one point to another in a focused and directed manner was very desirable, so pyro-masters kept refining the process through trial and error.  Finally, in about 668AD, a Greek refugee from Syria arrived at Constantinople with a proven recipe.  By 672, Kallinikos, as our Greek was called, had perfected his delivery technique and was using it to defend the Eastern Roman Empire against invaders.  Legend has it that this version could set water on fire and actually burn underwater.  

Image of a 12th century manuscript (Author's collection)

    All mythology and nonsense, right?  Except that napalm and white phosphorous fit these descriptions and were used to great effect during the wars of the twentieth century.  Throughout time there were other munitions that created races to develop and acquire regardless of the cost in dollars or humanity.  The atomic bomb is an excellent example of today’s Greek Fire as the centre of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, Japan reached five thousand degrees centigrade.  Add to that the fact that the second bomb (made of plutonium, not uranium) was so unstable that it had to be tested in the New Mexico desert prior to being dropped on Nagasaki and due to the arms race (both before and after) created by its introduction we see many parallels with Greek Fire. 

    Even today, the search for the proper recipe continues.  In early August 2019, there was an explosion west of Archangel, Russia and, subsequently, the town of Nenoksa was evacuated and all this was conducted under a veil of mis-information and retracted statements by the Russian Government.  What ever their cover-story may be, the most likely happenstance is this: The Russian military was testing a Skyfall missile (a nuclear missile powered by a nuclear reactor) that went awry.  The best bet is that its portable nuclear power station melted down in a smaller version of the Chernobyl, Ukraine tragedy.  Most certainly, the power station was one of a new offering by the Russian firm Rosatom.  Rosatom stated last year that they envisioned their new portable reactors being used in a fleet of nuclear-powered ice-breaking ships in support of Russia’s efforts to open (then dominate) the Northern Sea Route: thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via the Artic.

    Keep in mind that through all of this, Russia has no overt enemies and the only international enmity directed towards them is because of their meddling in external, sovereign affairs.

Close-up of the above manuscript (Author's collection)

Is this the fallout from today’s Greek Fire?