Annihilation from Within

ultimate finality of a nuclear or biological attack from within. And none have yet braved the difficulties of planning for it. Understandably, our political leadership is preoccupied with immediate security problems that clamor for prompt attention. Our intelligence services focus on hostile remnants of Al Qaeda, newly emerging jihadist groups, turmoil and killings in Iraq, a continuing danger of terrorist attacks in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Madrid, London, Jordan, the United States. It is the disasters we have recently experienced that make similar dangers real and fearsome. More distant perils ahead seem like a blurry specter, beyond the horizon of our emotions.
So we brush the troublesome forewarnings aside. We dismiss from our mind the fact that many current and future technologies can be misused for mass destruction; that such technologies continue to spread across borders as well as inside our national territory; that this proliferation is essentially irremediable; that evildoers keep trying to acquire such technologies by theft or bribes and will succeed sooner or later; and that we know from history of charismatic tyrants who rallied throngs of followers, taught them hatred, terrorized whole populations, and exploited a severe national crisis to grab dictatorial power. Instead of integrating these well-known facts to shine a shaft of light on the future, we cling to the conventional wisdom: that democracies will remove these threats from our planet by promoting political freedom, economic growth, and free trade.
But this wisdom will crumble instantly when a nation is attacked from within—suddenly and clandestinely—with a nuclear or advanced biological weapon causing immense damage and casualties. At that moment, the surviving military and civilian leadership in the attacked country, as well as governments of other nations, will find themselves in a world without guideposts. The lessons of military history will be of no avail. Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War, the outpourings of modern think tanks, and everything in between will all be useless in the shattering new situation. Because of the transforming novelty of such an attack, new national security concepts must be developed well before the onslaught occurs. Wide-ranging preparatory measures must be implemented in advance.
Military leaders routinely develop war plans for possible conflicts, particularly those started by an enemy surprise attack. So we should not flinch from planning against annihilation from within. War plans help the armed forces and government leaders to focus on the purpose of fighting the war—to expel an invader, to defeat an aggressor who initiated an all-out war, to occupy an area that needs to be pacified. We need new plans to reflect our utterly new situation.
This is not the first time we have been asked to rethink our strategies in the wake of a transformed political and technological environment. Following the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945, American and British statesmen sensed instantly that entirely new strategic goals would be needed. Within a few years, nuclear deterrence and non-proliferation became the key strategic objectives of the nuclear age. As indicated earlier (in chapter 3), both were only partially successful. We have seen that nuclear deterrence as a strategy for preventing attacks with conventional arms was oversold, while the policies against proliferation were gradually undone by the curse of “dual use.” In any event, the grand strategy of the nuclear age—deterrence combined with non-proliferation—will not offer an adequate conceptual basis for averting annihilation from within. Indeed, it is the inadequacy of non-proliferation policies that requires us to devise a new security concept. And given the mentality and elusive ubiquity of those who might seek to annihilate a nation from within, nuclear deterrence will be of only marginal value.
How should this new challenge be approached? Begin by imagining the needs of the national leadership in the immediate post-attack environment. Decisions with momentous consequences would have to be reached instantly. Special technologies to gather intelligence would have to be ready and in place. Previously enacted standby emergency laws would be essential to manage the aftermath. If we left the planning of all these responses until after the attack, we would obviously be too late. Yet few defense experts have come to grips with this preplanning agenda.
Since the requirements for each nation differ, I shall focus the following discussion mainly on the United States.
The Heart of the Matter
The American defense community has focused creatively on another transformation—the “revolution in military affairs.” This transformation is driven by improvements in military technology, such as robots that can search and destroy a target, new intelligence and space capabilities, missiles with pinpoint accuracy, and many more.1 These innovations are revolutionizing warfare between nations—but annihilation from within is not about wars between nations. It is about a sudden attack using massive violence designed to deprive a nation of its government. For extreme anarchists, the objective of the attack would be to create political chaos, from which, they believe, the ideal political order will emerge. For an aspiring dictator, the objective would be to replace the annihilated government with his own rule.
To thwart unprecedented attacks that could annihilate the United States from within, we must construct a new type of war plan, combined with pre-positioned emergency measures. Let us call the totality of these preparations the Ultimate Emergency Plan. It would complement but not displace current war plans or other preparatory policies. We will still want deterrence to dissuade any nuclear-armed power from launching a nuclear attack against another country—now a remote risk, one hopes. The strategic objectives and military forces that have served us well in hunting down Muslim terrorists might be needed for several decades. Clearly, the United States ought to keep many arrows in the quiver.
The violent and stealthy onslaughts designed to annihilate a nation from within are unique in a way that makes defensive measures and counteroffensives extraordinarily difficult. I shall try to demystify the anatomy of these stealthy onslaughts by providing a brief sketch of their unique factors:
■   First, very few people would be needed to carry out the attack. A single individual could spread a nationwide pandemic using a highly contagious virus. A