Apocalypse Never

3. The Nightmare of Nuclear Terror

38 Chapter 3 The Nightmare of Nuclear Terror Western leaders would do well to recall that the very first word in the very first work of western literature, Homer’s Iliad, is menis. Anger. Wrath. Rage. I once asked a seasoned public radio reporter, who had been chained inside the courtroom during every single day of the O. J. Simpson trial, the obvious questions: “Did he do it? Or did the Los Angeles Police Department plant a boatload full of fake evidence in an effort to frame a famous defendant?” “How do you know,” she replied, “that it wasn’t both?” As a nuclear weapons policy analyst and disarmament advocate, I am sometimes asked whether the danger of nuclear terror is real, or whether certain modern-day Machiavellis are manipulating our deepest fears to promote their own cynical political agendas. “How do you know,” I am inclined to reply, “that it isn’t both?” Nuclear terrorism is almost certainly the most likely nuclear threat today, and it may well be the single greatest immediate peril facing world civilization today. This chapter articulates the nuclear terror scenario , emphasizing how easy it could be to implement and how difficult it will be to prevent. But that case has been amply made elsewhere. This chapter makes a case that has rarely been made elsewhere. First, our bloated nuclear armory does nothing to protect us from nuclear terror. Second, our nuclear weapons, in fact, make it far more likely that we will eventually suffer from nuclear terror. Third, the entire human race could suffer catastrophic and enduring consequences from even a single episode of nuclear terror. Fourth, a coherent combination of short-, medium-, and long-term strategies offers our best hope for indefinitely dodging the bullet of nuclear terror. Finally, and most importantly, the only long-term solution for this—and all the other nuclear dangers this book will illuminate—is the abolition of nuclear weapons. CH003.qxd 2/4/10 10:56 AM Page 38 Jacques Chirac: January 19, 2006 The prospect that the menis simmering in the breasts of so many might result in cataclysms exceeding even those portrayed by Homer has never been presented so starkly as it was on January 19, 2006. Two public statements delivered on that day, almost simultaneously, show just how much western leaders seem to misunderstand the paramount security threat of the modern age. During a visit to a nuclear submarine base in Brittany on January 19, French president Jacques Chirac issued a warning to “the leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us.” He declared, “Those who would envisage using . . . weapons of mass destruction must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and fitting response on our part. This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different kind.” Chirac emphasized the “flexibility” of France’s nuclear arsenal, which consists of air-launched nuclear cruise missiles, air-dropped nuclear gravity bombs, and submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles. He indicated that France had developed nuclear warheads of a relatively small explosive yield, permitting Paris to deliver a precise nuclear strike “directly against the centers of power”—that is, the leaders of such states themselves. Because France consequently would not have to incinerate an entire metropolitan area in order to decapitate a regime, its deterrent threat arguably became more credible. “All our nuclear forces,” said Chirac, “have been configured in this spirit.”1 Disarmament advocates immediately condemned Chirac’s remarks. “Far from ridding France of nuclear weapons,” said the French peace group Sortir du Nucleaire, “the president is on the contrary considering the actual use of nuclear bombs.”2 Osama Bin Laden: January 19, 2006 On the same day, Al Jazeera aired the first audiotape released in more than a year by Osama bin Laden, a non-state actor who, since the ejection of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001, does not appear to have much direct support from the leaders of any state. The Al Qaeda leader explicitly warned that new terror attacks inside the United States were imminent: “The operations are under preparation, and you will see them in your homes the minute they are [arranged], God willing.”3 The Nightmare of Nuclear Terror 39 CH003.qxd 2/4/10 10:56 AM Page 39 On this tape, Bin Laden positioned himself as a statesman, one equal in stature...