Annihilation from Within

have them assembled within that nation. To employ the weapons, he could use a single two-man sabotage team, which would be nearly impossible to detect with the means available to a democratic government (unless it had an effective system of sensors, an issue I shall address in the next chapter). The two members of this team would have to be totally loyal to the aspiring dictator, and compulsively secretive. Once in possession of a couple of nuclear bombs, they would never have to think about becoming suicide bombers, they would never need any flight training, and to deploy their bombs properly they would not have to reconnoiter the target and thereby risk being detected. They could transport the nuclear bomb in a harmless-looking van, park it legally in the center of the city to be destroyed, trigger the detonation from a safe distance, and thus conveniently melt down their fingerprints, the automobile license, and all other evidence. After the first nuclear detonation, the aspiring dictator would rely mainly on his legitimate organizations and his popular influence to seize political power by exploiting the chaos, havoc, and psychological shock he had deliberately caused.
Many nondemocratic governments will be more vulnerable to a nuclear power-grab than well-established democracies. For example, authoritarian leaders of Central Asian republics seek to avert the establishment of fundamentalist Islamic societies. Yet a more fundamentalist religious order is favored by large and well-organized population groups in these countries and might gain the support of the majority. In Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, over 80 percent of the population are Muslim. One nuclear bomb detonated in the country’s capital could eliminate the authoritarian leader and much of his power structure. This awful shock might enable a militant religious leader to mobilize his followers and seize control of the nation. In Iraq the young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr recently demonstrated that a skillful and assertive Muslim leader can rapidly gain a dominant political role.
In Russia, a successful nuclear power-grab would cause an immense international crisis, given its size, cultural importance, economic weight, and above all its large nuclear arsenal. The chronic insurgencies in the North Caucasus region—well within Russia’s borders—could be a seedbed for Muslim terrorism. In addition, Russia’s messianic cults (such as the White Brotherhood) and political extremist groups (such as the National Bolshevik Party) might come under the spell of a leader who wants to carry out a nuclear power-grab.19
To attempt a nuclear power-grab in a well-established democracy would require different tactics. In the dual-power stratagem the aspiring dictator would have built up his the lawful political role by propagating a seemingly benign new ideology that appeals to youthful groups, to the nation’s underclass, and to leaderless activists thirsting to be recognized as an emerging political force. He would have to be half-witted—and hence unsuccessful in the end—if he tried to campaign on jihadist themes, or on “neo-Nazi” themes in the manner of those European politicians of the far right who manage to attract huge counterdemonstrations against themselves. Instead he might seek to recruit followers among restless minorities. In a West European nation the minority of choice could be disaffected youths among second-generation Muslims, in the United States it could be illegal Hispanic immigrants or unassimilated legal ones. But initially, an aspiring dictator attempting a nuclear power-grab might present himself as a compassionate, liberal “antiracist” who cares about the welfare of all minorities.
He would make sure that any organization with which he is openly connected is perfectly legal. To this end, he might build up his own political party, or start a faction within one of the major existing parties. He could also establish a think tank, the better to collect all sorts of information openly and to disseminate sophisticated propaganda. He would thus gain influence within the legitimate political establishment as a candidate prime minister (or president). When a critical election approaches in which the incumbent leader campaigns to be reelected, the aspiring dictator would promise more effective policies to avert a clandestine terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon.
Then, when the election date is near, he would order his two henchmen to detonate one of the low-yield nuclear bombs, perhaps in the capital. Television and radio networks would instantly converge on the aspiring dictator as the candidate who had warned against precisely this attack. Now a recognized candidate, he would gain nationwide publicity. As soon as he wins the election—or even if he can only assert that he won by exploiting the uncertainties of an utterly chaotic votecount—he will order his “Heinrich Himmler” or his “Feliks Dzerzhinski” to organize a secret police skillful in the use of violence to intimidate political opponents. In 1918, Lenin had Dzerzhinski staff his secret police with Latvians and other foreigners. In the same manner, the new dictator, to consolidate his nuclear power-grab, might staff his secret police partly with thugs and assassins who had been trained by one of the foreign narcotics cartels. This devilish gambit might help him stir up hatred against minorities and thus create a despairing, divided society—people whom a brutal tyrant can easily rule. In this grim new world, democracies would be at risk everywhere.
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,