Apocalypse Never

10. Breakout: Could Someone Cheat and Rule the World?

Chapter 10 Breakout Could Someone Cheat and Rule the World? Many years ago, I earned a master’s degree in international studies from the University of Southampton in England, after being named a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar. It’s a marvelous program that dispatches students from all over the world to all over the world—to study, mingle, and break bread in an effort to cultivate world citizenship and transnational understanding. Recipients are often chosen less for their academic achievement than for their loud personalities. Most every weekend I would jump on a train into London, ninetynine minutes from Southampton Central to Waterloo Station, and then explore the city via the marvelous subway system, known to all as the tube. One Saturday afternoon, I noticed an advertising banner board in one tube station—a huge drawing of a hideous and decidedly evil extraterrestrial , with the huge caption “Ruler of All the Universe.” I strolled over to take a closer look and found, at the bottom of the banner, in very small letters, the words “Find Your Future Job in the Sunday Times of London.” It has often been claimed, almost as if it were self-evident, that if a state in a post-abolition world were suddenly to reveal a few nuclear warheads—that it had either previously squirreled away or constructed after disarmament—that state would immediately and irresistibly become a hideous and decidedly evil “Ruler of All the World.” Among those who argue against nuclear weapons abolition, this is known as the breakout scenario. But in truth, the breakout scenario is a hopelessly flawed canard. As this chapter will demonstrate, if a state in a post-abolition 189 CH010.qxd 2/4/10 11:11 AM Page 189 world suddenly revealed a few or even a great many nuclear warheads, it would not be able to do much of anything with them at all. So What If You’ve Got a Few Nuclear Weapons? Over the years, the breakout scenario has been the most oft-repeated objection to nuclear weapons abolition. Despite the wealth of potential verification measures described in Chapter 9, something quite fundamental must be admitted. We will never be sure, 100 percent sure, that during the process of universal nuclear weapons dismantlement, someone didn’t hide a few bombs in the basement. And we will never be sure, 100 percent sure, that after the completion of universal nuclear weapons dismantlement, someone isn’t building a few atom bombs in some hidden weapons lab or warehouse or garage. The fear is that some state will whip back the curtain and suddenly announce, “We fooled you all! Accede to our demands by Tuesday, you pathetic weaklings, or a nuclear rain of ruin will descend upon your puny and defenseless nations.” Then the world will live unhappily ever after under their lessthan -benevolent global dictatorship. But would revealing a few nuclear warheads really enable the possessor to impose its will on all non-nuclear actors? Could such a cheater indeed “rule the world?” The contention here is that a hypothetical breakout state, a sole nuclear weapon state on the planet, would be utterly unable to impose its will on anyone else by threatening a nuclear strike. Yes, nuclear weapons might provide the possessor with a nuclear deterrent—against conventional attack—as I argued in Chapter 8 regarding North Korea and Iran today. But although that might admittedly enhance the incentives for a state to attempt such breakout, it would not mean that by doing so they could force other states to do their bidding. And it is the latter, not the former, that has always been advanced as the definitive reason why the world cannot risk nuclear weapons abolition. Any state in a nuclear weapon–free world that contemplated not just nuclear deterrence, but nuclear coercion would confront two powerful disincentives. First, the United States can today promise a devastating retaliatory strike on any country in the world with its conventional capabilities alone (see Chapter 8). If a breakout state actually A p o c a l y p s e N e v e r 190 CH010.qxd 2/4/10 11:11 AM Page 190 pulled the trigger on a nuclear first strike, the conventional response from the United States would be every bit as devastating as if the United States still possessed thousands of nuclear weapons. If such a cheater endeavored...