Annihilation from Within Fred Iklé (cool books to read .txt) 📖

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.

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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