To find the solutions we desperately need, the U.S. Government should have established a generously funded, well-focused national project, run by a highly competent manager who would be given the authority to enlist and empower the best scientists at the national nuclear laboratories and universities. Over the years, successful projects of this kind have included the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project. Richard Wagner and I were not alone in our self-chosen mission to convince senior U.S. officials of the need for this project. We were joined by Dr. John Foster (former director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Ambassador David Abshire (a leader of think tanks and advisor to many presidents), Norman Augustine (former chairman of the Lockheed Corporation), and other luminaries. We talked to numerous senior officials, from Vice President Cheney on down. None of them disagreed with us that it was time for a serious R&D project on nuclear-detection technology. Yet sadly, it took another three years to get a rather dilatory project started.
No single malfeasance in the U.S. Government can be blamed for the delay in starting this project, but weaknesses in leadership and flawed procedures help explain it. The authority to reach a final decision is often diluted within the bureaucracy, especially for new initiatives on which several agencies claim to have a say. “Authority is spread so thinly that no one can say yes and too many people can say no,” wrote John Lehman (a member of the 9/11 commission) of America’s recent intelligence reorganization. Also, the officials who are nominally in charge often lack the authority—or the courage—to modify wholly inappropriate regulations that harm the national interest. A welter of harmful accounting regulations prevent the Department of Energy from making the most of its jurisdiction over the national laboratories. Newt Gingrich found that the damaging slowdown of Iraq’s reconstruction could have been avoided had common sense replaced the impractical accounting regulations, which everyone felt compelled to follow.4 Another reason for the neglect of nuclear-detection technology by the U.S. Government is the American tradition of defining “national security” and the mission of the Defense Department as the protection of American interests beyond the shores, to the exclusion of U.S. territory. As Stephen Flynn points out, America is the only country that “continues to treat domestic and national security as distinguishable from one another.”5
After interminable interagency meetings, the U.S. Government bureaucracy created the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, located in the Department of Homeland Security. Or more accurately, it created a large organization-chart for a new office meant to design and manage the overall architecture of detecting and interdicting smuggled nuclear weapons. But to design an “architecture” for detecting smuggled nuclear weapons without knowing more about the detection technology is like designing a nation’s air force, with all its bases, personnel, and logistics, without knowledge about the aircraft that will be built. A vigorous R&D project on this technology ought to be the first priority, since it will take years to invent and develop effective technology and to produce prototypes.
Curiously, midlevel bureaucrats repeatedly opposed such an R&D project, pretending “the limits of physics” would preclude significant progress in detection technology. In fact, it was not the “limits of physics” but the bureaucrats’ limited knowledge of physics that blocked progress. Senior officials in the Defense Department knew better. They recognized the importance of developing more effective means against smuggled nuclear weapons. Secretary Rumsfeld approved a new Quadrennial Defense Review in February 2006, and this guidance for the Pentagon’s priorities leaves no doubt about the requirement to detect and render safe nuclear materials and devices.6 Douglas J. Feith (Undersecretary of Defense for Policy 2001–2005), by ensuring that this requirement became part of the new guidance, changed the Pentagon’s role from a bystander to an active participant in the development of such nuclear detection systems. And Ryan Henry (Principal Deputy of the Undersecretary for Policy) skillfully advanced the implementation of the guidance. The Pentagon would be able to move ahead rapidly since its Defense Threat Reduction Agency has the requisite technical and administrative capabilities. Thanks to its highly competent leaders—Dr. James A. Tegnelia and Dr. G. Peter Nanos—the agency could launch an effective integrated project. Yet, as of this writing, obstructionist bureaucrats might yet prevail over those of us who reject the idea that America must remain naked to an enemy attack with smuggled nuclear weapons.
2. ASSURING THE CONTINUITY OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT To eliminate the incumbent government is the central purpose of those who seek to annihilate a nation from within. An aspiring dictator planning a nuclear power-grab will target the political leadership. So might anarchists who want to substitute their fantasized nirvana for the legitimate government. Jihadists living in Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other European democracies have already used murder and threats of murder to remove or intimidate parliamentarians and critics of their “faith-based” terrorism.
As noted in the previous chapter, it would be much easier for jihadists to mount a successful nuclear power-grab in one of the authoritarian Central Asian Republics than in an established democracy. But in one respect democracies are peculiarly vulnerable: Unlike dictatorships, they must concern themselves with the constitutional and legal requirements for replacing killed parliamentarians or government officials. During the Cold War, the U.S. Congress and the Executive branch paid considerable attention to the possibility of a Soviet nuclear attack that might devastate Washington. To protect the members of Congress, the second Eisenhower administration built a massive underground bunker, hidden below the fashionable Greenbrier hotel in West Virginia and equipped with communications, assembly rooms, and many other necessities. The whole installation, tucked away under this huge building, remained secret—at least to the public—for thirty years. It is now open to tourists, a sight to be seen. And for visitors with some imagination as to what the installation was all about, the sight is both impressive and deeply depressing. It also attests to the seriousness with which President Eisenhower sought to assure the continuity of Congress despite the worst manmade catastrophe then imaginable. But even the Greenbrier plan had its weaknesses. Like most Cold War measures for the continuity of government, it was predicated on the assumption of several hours’ advance warning; and secrecy was also essential.
A properly organized nuclear power-grab would not provide warning, and one nuclear weapon with a yield of those used in 1945 could kill nearly everyone in the U.S. Capitol building from a van parked well beyond the normal security perimeter. While senators killed by such a sneak attack could soon be replaced in most states by the governors, members of the House of Representatives would have to be replaced through special elections in their districts—a slow process even in normal times, and likely to be far slower during what would be the greatest crisis in the nation’s history. There are several different ways in which the House might be reconstituted, but it is important to settle on one of them in advance of the crisis. Members of Congress and various commissions have proposed solutions; and Norman J. Ornstein, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has made a strong case for the House itself to take action.7 Yet the House has thus far failed to agree on an effective solution. In the late 1950s, the U.S. Government had the iron discipline and determination to complete the expensive Greenbrier project. Today, despite the experience of 9/11, Congress cannot even agree on passing a cost-free bill to ensure that a House of Representatives will exist after a super-9/11.
And the issue of the federal government’s continuity is not confined to Congress. Consider the replacement of senior officials in U.S. Government agencies and departments. Before being appointed by the President, all prospective senior officials must fill out questionnaires to obtain White House clearance—a process that can be time-consuming, infuriating, and insulting. Did you pay the Social Security taxes for the boy who mows your lawn? Will you divest yourself of all assets that could be construed as a conflict of interest? When the
White House apparatchiks are finally satisfied with the answers, the nominee must repeat the whole process to be confirmed by the Senate, instead of being allowed to simply provide a copy of the questions already answered. The nominee has to fill out dozens of additional questionnaires targeting the same issues, but—as if meant to double the workload—using different formats.
How will the President replace cabinet members and other senior officials the morning after an anthrax attack or nuclear bomb has killed half the senior officials in Washington? Unless that question has been answered in advance, the President will confront a disastrous dilemma: either wait months until all the forms have been filled out, reviewed, and the confirmation hearings completed; or, more likely, make “interim” appointments, whether legal or not, and navigate with a substitute “cabinet” that lacks constitutional and political approval at precisely the time when the government’s legitimacy and legal continuity are of transcendent importance. This is not a problem that requires a study; it has been studied, and it cries for implementation.8 A tiny drop of foresight and a flyspeck of courage in Congress would solve it.
3. MOBILIZATION LAWS Established democracies generally have laws empowering the president (or prime minister) to restore law and order and strengthen the country’s security in the event of an insurrection or armed attack. The U.S. president has several options for dealing with national emergencies. And as Paul Schott Stevens has explained, the legal restrictions on the President’s use of military forces in domestic emergencies have frequently been exaggerated, sometimes deliberately by defense officials, in order to prevent military forces being diverted from overseas missions.9 But what would really be needed in this unique emergency is something akin to a Declaration of War. As envisaged in the Constitution, only Congress can declare war. Last used in World War II, the old-fashioned Declaration of War is far more powerful and comprehensive than any of the President’s current emergency authorities. It automatically triggers a host of provisions in the U.S. legal code to support the armed services and provide for industrial mobilization. As part of the Ultimate Emergency Plan that I am suggesting here, a carefully prepared, new presidential emergency declaration could incorporate some of the still useful legal ramifications of the Declaration of War. Of course, the President’s authority to issue such an expanded Declaration would have to be legislated by Congress in advance of any mass destruction attack. And when issued it ought to require congressional approval as soon as Congress could function again. But having such a law ready would be of enormous help in managing the extreme crisis.
Indeed, the existence of some such presidential authority might help deter the attack. It is important that anarchists and terrorists be told in advance they cannot annihilate America with a nuclear or biological attack. They might, to be sure, inflict horrifying destruction, casualties, and pain. But if the President (or his successor) is empowered to instantly marshal all of America’s strength based on a firm constitutional and legal foundation, the attack would be unlikely to attain its objectives. The final outcome would more likely include the extermination of the individuals who employed the mass destruction weapon, together with all their instigators, financiers, and supporting arms peddlers.
Many thoughtful people are concerned that increased government powers in an emergency will undermine civil liberties, privacy, and human rights. Michael Ignatieff’s recent book The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in the Age of Terror has a great deal to contribute on this important problem. It sets forth a nuanced agenda for combining an aggressive war against terrorism with maintenance of democratic institutions. Emergency powers should be carefully designed to preserve essential rights wherever possible and to ensure the restoration of rights when the threat has receded. In the situation where mass destruction weapons have already been used, or are about to be used, most people would want the government to have all the intrusive and “oppressive” powers needed to protect the democratic nation from being destroyed. Which makes it all the more important that legislators draft, and upon careful review adopt, emergency powers beforehand. After the cataclysm, it would be impossible to create the delicate balance between what’s immediately needed for survival and what’s desirable for the democratic future. A news leak in December 2005 about warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens has led to a flood of criticism in the media and angry debate in Congress. That’s how democracy must work. But a calamity far worse than 9/11 (which was the event that led to these wiretaps) might strike Washington, and it would behoove Congress—after all its backward-looking debate about warrantless wiretaps—to turn around and look ahead.
The new emergency declaration should also include provisions for industrial mobilization. Administrative preparations by the Roosevelt administration in 1940–41 helped greatly in accomplishing America’s enormous mobilization after the Pearl Harbor attack. In August 1941, President Roosevelt established the Supply, Priorities, and Allocation Board, charged with dividing available materials among military and civilian needs. After December 7, 1941, the automotive industry rapidly shifted its plants and labor force to the production of tanks.10 For the kind of attack considered here, the standby authorities for industrial mobilization would obviously not be about tanks, but about technologies for use against weapons of mass destruction—from vaccines to nuclear sensors. Assume, for instance, that prior to a stealthy use of a nuclear bomb, highly effective nuclear-detection technology had been developed but not yet mass-produced and deployed. At that point, the mobilization authority would empower the government rapidly to move from the production of consumer goods all the materials, plants, and workforce needed to produce thousands of these sensors.
4. GUARDING TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY In times of domestic upheaval as well as in wars between nations, a country’s sovereign territory is the decisive arena. The military strategist Colin S. Gray puts it well: “The modern state is legally a territorial entity, and nearly everything that we care about deeply exists on land…. Human beings do not live at sea, or in cyberspace.”11 After an attack from within employing mass destruction weapons, the nation’s sovereign territory would be a contested arena. Unfortunately, democracies have become increasingly beholden to deeply flawed policies and various United Nation conventions that limit their ability to govern their sovereign territory.
The underlying facts of this predicament are well known, but their interpretation is a controversial topic. It triggers bitter clashes of conflicting ethical principles and disputes about multiculturalism, open borders, xenophobia and xenophilia, the merits of international law, and other hot-button issues.
The UN Asylum Convention affords a spectacular example of the new restrictions on countries’ control of their territory. The right of asylum has become an ethical imperative so compelling as to forestall discussion of its associated absurdities. Does flight from political repression qualify anyone for asylum? In principle, it should, according to the original concept of asylum. But in practice that is wholly impossible, since three billion people on this planet live under political repression. So the contrived limitation of the Asylum Convention is that the applicant must have managed to put a foot across the border of a host country. At that point, the host country’s asylum bureaucracy and international monitors take over, endlessly blocking any effort to weed out fraudulent claimants. In the United States and in Western Europe political elites with blinkered conscience defend the system because they can calmly ignore the three billion people living under repressive despots. These masses of people—oh, how convenient—are unable to meet the condition for claiming asylum, namely to cross the border of a magnanimous democracy.
But there have been occasions in which asylum seekers approach the territory of the wealthy democracies not just in small groups, but as rippling waves that look like harbingers of an immense flood tide. Instantly, the democracies on which these harbingers intrude become fearful and try to revise their asylum laws. Yet the UN asylum police and holier-than-thou legislators won’t allow
this. Unable to change the law, the executive branches of the affected governments feel compelled to cheat audaciously. In 1992–93, throngs of Haitians sought to escape their nation’s turmoil and poverty by reaching American territory on any available vessel. The Clinton administration’s response was to intercept the ships fleeing from Haiti and to bribe the Haitian government to let the U.S. Coast Guard escort them back home before the would-be refugees could land and claim asylum under the UN Asylum Convention.12 Nations of the European Union have made similar deals with East European and African countries. When ships with smuggled immigrants from Asia approached American shores, the U.S. Government has intercepted the vessels and pleaded with Mexico, Guatemala, or Honduras to let the Coast Guard escort the ships to their countries where the less fastidious legal practices would sweep all the asylum claims into a wastebasket and allow quick repatriation of the whole human cargo. In 2005 the socialist government of Spain countered the flow of African asylum seekers by surrounding Ceuta and Melilla (the Spanish exclaves in Africa) with double fences, and made a deal with Morocco to take back any would-be asylum seekers who made it over the razor wires atop those fences.
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