Annihilation from Within

by Fred Charles Iklé

  Could the United States become the victim of an aspiring dictator employing nuclear violence cloaked in deception? It Can’t Happen Here is the title of Sinclair Lewis’s political fiction published in 1935. It portrays a Fascist senator who promises easy solutions to overcome the Great Depression, and who ends up winning the presidential election of 1936. The story line has the new president gaining total control of the U.S. Government, in a sequence somewhat analogous to Hitler’s coup in 1933. Once elected, the Fascist president employs paramilitary storm troopers for the essential acts of violence.20

  The truth is that in the 1930s—before the age of nuclear weapons—this really could not have “happened here.” Despite the hardship of the Great Depression, the American people would have upheld their democratic traditions and constitutional government.

  Likewise today, the United States would be the most difficult target for any such nuclear power-grab, not because of its superior military might or its elaborate homeland defenses (which leave much to be desired anyhow), but because of its inner political strength. Yet this political strength would melt away if America’s broken immigration policies could not be repaired and continued to let mass immigration overwhelm America’s capacity for assimilating its new arrivals. The historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. has warned of the “disuniting of America” and explained why multiculturalism is not the answer. “The bonds of cohesion in our society are sufficiently fragile,” he wrote, “that it makes no sense to strain them by encouraging and exalting cultural and linguistic apartheid.”21

  The Tidal Wave

  After a stealthy attack on a city with a nuclear bomb, anthrax, or sarin, those responsible are likely to remain unknown for some time, while a charismatic leader might then succeed in grabbing dictatorial power. Whether or not this leader instigated the attack, his opponents will accuse him of having done so. The story of Hitler and the Reichstag fire offers an example. In the night of February 27, 1933, barely a month after Hitler had been appointed Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, the Reichstag building in Berlin was destroyed by a fire. At that time, Hitler had not yet consolidated his dictatorship. With great political cunning, he immediately exploited the dramatic conflagration by accusing the Communists of having caused it to launch a Bolshevik revolution in Germany. This political offensive enabled Hitler to declare a state of emergency, based upon which he rapidly entrenched his rule of terror and violence. Not surprisingly, many foreign commentators at that time assumed the Nazis themselves had burned the Reichstag building to give Hitler the pretext for his power grab. Since then, however, some respected historians have disputed the charge, and the culpability for the Reichstag arson remains unsettled to this day.22

  As Americans have learned from the anthrax attacks in 2001, uncertainty about the perpetrator feeds rumors and political dissension. After a nuclear bomb had stealthily been used to destroy the heart of a major city while the government could not provide a convincing identification of the perpetrators, the people would start to mistrust their government. Some might seek consolation in pseudo-religious fantasies, perhaps convincing themselves that the Apocalyptic time of the Rapture had arrived and that the incumbent government is the Antichrist. But the tide of angst and uncertainty will also have serious international consequences. In every nation with a functioning government, the leaders and political elites will begin to fear their country might be next. Moreover, the sudden end of nuclear nonuse—a universal dispensation that has lasted since 1945—could ignite a rapid, further proliferation of nuclear weapons. If the victimized nation is a major nuclear power, it is likely to alert its strategic forces for preempting a possible follow-on attack, this time by a foreign enemy. Other nuclear powers would discover the alert and alert their own nuclear forces. Such a many-sided interlock of forces that are being mobilized recalls the calamity of August 1914. If the nuclear power-grab occurred in Pakistan, many Pakistani’s would blame India for having provided the bomb or actually employed it; and vice versa, if the clandestine detonation occurred in India.

  We also know from history that even the best and the brightest often lose their moral compass during times of war or during periods when nations fear a devastating surprise attack. The confrontation with wanton carnage, deception, and cruelty summons the Furies of revenge, who can convert peace-loving, liberal-minded elites into promoters of genocide. During World War II, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who frequently articulated ethical values that resonated with liberals, wanted to spray Strontium 90 (a baleful carcinogenic element) on Germany. According to Joseph Rotblatt (a nuclear scientist from the era of the Manhattan Project), Oppenheimer wrote in 1943 to Enrico Fermi, who was in charge of the first reactor in Chicago, that he should not begin the project until he could produce enough Sr-90 to kill half a million people. During John F. Kennedy’s presidency, the U.S. war plans for retaliation in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack provided for targeting millions of people in the hapless captive nations of Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe (which would have fiercely opposed the Soviet attack, given a chance). And the Kennedy era war plan would also have China instantly targeted, even though it might not have been involved in the Soviet attack.23

  Although 9/11 changed international affairs significantly, it left the basic architecture of the world order intact. This will not be the case after an anarchist cult or an aspiring dictator has made effective use of one or a few weapons of mass destruction. The political and military leadership of all nations would not take long to recognize they face an entirely new kind of enemy, a deadly force that nations have never before experienced. How could the world order be restored after a well-established nation suddenly had been annihilated from within?

  There is nothing now discernible on the geopolitical landscape to prevent such an attack from happening—save, perhaps, an unending continuance of good luck. We do not know how to build a citadel to protect democracies from nuclear or biological weapons. We do not know how to create a world order that would truly remove these monster weapons as a threat to mankind. And thus far, at least, we lack the resolve to plan ahead. Unless we give this awesome prospect some serious thought, we will be without a strategy to deal with it and without the tools to prevail.

  It is high time to get serious.

  5

  TIME TO GET SERIOUS

  If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told.

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL (APRIL 24, 1933)

  OUR CAPACITY TO GUIDE AND GOVERN WILL BE indispensable if we are to survive the coming era of proliferating mass destruction weapons. Few strategic planners are aware of the ultimate finality of a nuclear or biological attack from within. And none have yet braved the difficulties of planning for it. Understandably, our political leadership is preoccupied with immediate security problems that clamor for prompt attention. Our intelligence services focus on hostile remnants of Al Qaeda, newly emerging jihadist groups, turmoil and killings in Iraq, a continuing danger of terrorist attacks in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Madrid, London, Jordan, the United States. It is the disasters we have recently experienced that make similar dangers real and fearsome. More distant perils ahead seem like a blurry specter, beyond the horizon of our emotions.

  So we brush the troublesome forewarnings aside. We dismiss from our mind the fact that many current and future technologies can be misused for mass destruction; that such technologies continue to spread across borders as well as inside our national territory; that this proliferation is essentially irremediable; that evildoers keep trying to acquire such technologies by theft or bribes and will succeed sooner or later; and that we know from history of charismatic tyrants who rallied throngs of followers, taught them hatred, terrorized whole populations, and exploited a severe national crisis to grab dictatorial power. Instead of integrating these well-known facts to shine a shaft of light on the future, we cling to the conventional wisdom: that democracies will remove these threats from our planet
by promoting political freedom, economic growth, and free trade.

  But this wisdom will crumble instantly when a nation is attacked from within—suddenly and clandestinely—with a nuclear or advanced biological weapon causing immense damage and casualties. At that moment, the surviving military and civilian leadership in the attacked country, as well as governments of other nations, will find themselves in a world without guideposts. The lessons of military history will be of no avail. Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War, the outpourings of modern think tanks, and everything in between will all be useless in the shattering new situation. Because of the transforming novelty of such an attack, new national security concepts must be developed well before the onslaught occurs. Wide-ranging preparatory measures must be implemented in advance.

  Military leaders routinely develop war plans for possible conflicts, particularly those started by an enemy surprise attack. So we should not flinch from planning against annihilation from within. War plans help the armed forces and government leaders to focus on the purpose of fighting the war—to expel an invader, to defeat an aggressor who initiated an all-out war, to occupy an area that needs to be pacified. We need new plans to reflect our utterly new situation.

  This is not the first time we have been asked to rethink our strategies in the wake of a transformed political and technological environment. Following the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945, American and British statesmen sensed instantly that entirely new strategic goals would be needed. Within a few years, nuclear deterrence and non-proliferation became the key strategic objectives of the nuclear age. As indicated earlier (in chapter 3), both were only partially successful. We have seen that nuclear deterrence as a strategy for preventing attacks with conventional arms was oversold, while the policies against proliferation were gradually undone by the curse of “dual use.” In any event, the grand strategy of the nuclear age—deterrence combined with non-proliferation—will not offer an adequate conceptual basis for averting annihilation from within. Indeed, it is the inadequacy of non-proliferation policies that requires us to devise a new security concept. And given the mentality and elusive ubiquity of those who might seek to annihilate a nation from within, nuclear deterrence will be of only marginal value.

  How should this new challenge be approached? Begin by imagining the needs of the national leadership in the immediate post-attack environment. Decisions with momentous consequences would have to be reached instantly. Special technologies to gather intelligence would have to be ready and in place. Previously enacted standby emergency laws would be essential to manage the aftermath. If we left the planning of all these responses until after the attack, we would obviously be too late. Yet few defense experts have come to grips with this preplanning agenda.

  Since the requirements for each nation differ, I shall focus the following discussion mainly on the United States.

  The Heart of the Matter

  The American defense community has focused creatively on another transformation—the “revolution in military affairs.” This transformation is driven by improvements in military technology, such as robots that can search and destroy a target, new intelligence and space capabilities, missiles with pinpoint accuracy, and many more.1 These innovations are revolutionizing warfare between nations—but annihilation from within is not about wars between nations. It is about a sudden attack using massive violence designed to deprive a nation of its government. For extreme anarchists, the objective of the attack would be to create political chaos, from which, they believe, the ideal political order will emerge. For an aspiring dictator, the objective would be to replace the annihilated government with his own rule.

  To thwart unprecedented attacks that could annihilate the United States from within, we must construct a new type of war plan, combined with pre-positioned emergency measures. Let us call the totality of these preparations the Ultimate Emergency Plan. It would complement but not displace current war plans or other preparatory policies. We will still want deterrence to dissuade any nuclear-armed power from launching a nuclear attack against another country—now a remote risk, one hopes. The strategic objectives and military forces that have served us well in hunting down Muslim terrorists might be needed for several decades. Clearly, the United States ought to keep many arrows in the quiver.

  The violent and stealthy onslaughts designed to annihilate a nation from within are unique in a way that makes defensive measures and counteroffensives extraordinarily difficult. I shall try to demystify the anatomy of these stealthy onslaughts by providing a brief sketch of their unique factors:

  ■ First, very few people would be needed to carry out the attack. A single individual could spread a nationwide pandemic using a highly contagious virus. A two-person team would be sufficient to deploy and detonate a couple of nuclear weapons. America’s vast intelligence systems focus largely on individual evildoers to track down collaborators, conspirators, and supporters of Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. This people-centered approach might easily miss a couple of perpetrators who do their deed alone and know how to avoid telephone calls and other careless ways of revealing themselves. Hence, intelligence gathering needs to be complemented with effective technologies that can detect a nuclear weapon before it is delivered to its target.

  ■ Second, our enemies may acquire weapons of mass destruction via procedures for which we have no ready response. Although nuclear weapons will be more difficult to acquire than biological ones, it cannot be ruled out that an anarchist cult might motivate a couple of nuclear scientists to build a relatively low-yield nuclear bomb with stolen high-enriched uranium. In 1966 nuclear physicist Theodore Taylor wrote (in the memorandum cited in the previous chapter): “The knowledge necessary for the construction of transportable fission explosives is rapidly becoming understood by increasing numbers of people all over the world.” Forty years later, this danger surely has not gone away.

  ■ Third, if the attack has been properly planned and carried out, the U.S. Government may not know for some time who caused it. The intelligence services will presumably be unable to identify either the individuals who deployed the weapon, or the organization—if any—that supported them, or the foreign sources that may have supplied the weapon, knowingly or otherwise. These massive uncertainties could wreak political havoc.

  ■ Fourth, the very nature of the attack, and the possibility of follow-on attacks, will demand instant responses by the surviving government officials. The legitimacy of our post-attack government will be at stake in this response, since signs of uncertainty could trigger a downward spiral of political disintegration.

  ■ Fifth on this list is a wild card. There is no law of physics requiring that weapons of mass destruction be nuclear, or chemical, or biological. In the coming decades, other technologies will be developed or rediscovered that can be misused to cause novel types of mass destruction.

  These are some of the problems the Ultimate Emergency Plan has to address. Providing a full description of the Plan with all its component measures would take me way beyond the scope of this book. But several specific examples will illustrate the kinds of measures needing to be tackled now.

  1. DETECTING NUCLEAR BOMBS Those who attempt to annihilate a nation from within by employing a few nuclear bombs must ensure that their bombs remain concealed until they have been detonated. This obvious fact holds true whether the bombs have been acquired abroad by a tyrant planning a power grab, smuggled into the country by one of the contemporary terrorist organizations, or manufactured at home by an anarchist cult like Aum Shinrikyo, which made its poison gas within earshot of the Japanese police. A top priority for the Ultimate Emergency Plan is the development of sensors and other technologies to detect concealed nuclear bombs.

  Against nuclear weapons or fissile material smuggled from abroad, one of our first lines of defense is the Nunn-Lugar program for safeguarding the Soviet nuclear detritus (see chapter 3). Another is the multinational Proliferation Security Initiative of the B
ush administration, which aims to intercept weapons of mass destruction that are being smuggled on ships. These efforts abroad would benefit greatly from better detection systems; and for the last line of defense at home, powerful new detection technology is essential. Although specific measures to respond to this priority have been recommended repeatedly, their implementation has proceeded at a snail’s pace. In 1995 and 1997, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board conducted studies that explained in plain terms the need for better sensor technologies. Dr. Lowell Wood, a brilliant innovator who is a Senior Scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, was one of the participating experts and contributed creative ideas for detecting nuclear bombs.2 As a participant in the 1997 study, I naively expected that a research effort on nuclear sensors would be started forthwith.

  During the next five years, essentially nothing was done. In 2002, at last, the Defense Science Board established a new task force that issued the report “Preventing and Defending Against Clandestine Nuclear Attack” (published in 2004 and readable at www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2004). Dr. Richard Wagner, a senior nuclear scientist with Los Alamos National Laboratory, chaired this task force, of which I was a member. When our report was completed, Wagner and I agreed that now, indeed, it was time to get serious. So we embarked on a campaign to convince appropriate officials throughout the U.S. Government of the urgent need for a project that could give us some real solutions. By “real solutions” we did not mean endless interagency meetings and spiral-bound reports. A cavalcade of reports will not protect the country.3