Last week’s mail brought a small bounty, an advance copy of Robert D. Kaplan’s latest book, Waste Land. Kaplan is one of my favorite Neo-Malthusian pessimists. He has an incredible bandwidth—prodigious reader, inveterate traveler (to dreadful places), journalist, thinker, writer. Waste Land won’t be out until January, but you can pre-order it here, and if you’re smart, you will. Normally, I’d wait until closer to pub date to tout the book, and I’ve just started reading it—but its relevance manifested almost immediately, especially in this week of exploding pagers. Kaplan posits that the era of successful nuclear deterrence is over. Thermonuclear weapons are dinosaurs; a new generation of tactical nuclear weapons has been developed and could be used in places like Ukraine or the Middle East in the immediate future.
There is a long tradition of taking Mutually Assured Destruction for granted. Nuclear weapons have been among the most successful peacekeepers in history—so long as the contest was binary, us against the Russians. We came to think of any speculation about the use of nukes as hyperbolic to the point of crazy. They were not only unthinkable, but also unmentionable—euphemisms were used, like “We’re taking nothing off the table.” But with the end of the Cold War, we pretty much forgot about what used to be called “the nuclear threat”—at least, I had, until now.
This comes in a week where three columnists I esteem—Tom Friedman, David Ignatius and George Will—consider the implications of the remarkable Israeli attack on Hezbollah’s pagers and two-way radios. A Kaplanesque question emerges: Are the Israeli attacks the beginning of a new era of fewer-holds-barred warfare? Will they open the door to more extreme measures? Will Israel, having blinded the coms of its most immediate enemy, take advantage of the situation and really go after Hezbollah? Will a wider war in the Middle East debut the first use of tactical nukes? Will the Russians work to produce chaos in the next month in order to enhance—without “collusion”—Trump’s chances? Will this be the October surprise? These are all plausible impossibilities, and I’ll look at them individually—but first, a bit of history.
Do you remember the neutron bomb? It was an atomic weapon that could be used tactically—the neutron shower killed people but did minimal damage to structures. Both the United States and Russia were developing them. Jimmy Carter delayed our program in 1978, but Ronald Reagan resumed it in 1981—and then, soon after, stopped developing the weapons. The theory was, our thermonuclear umbrella would prevent the Soviets from ever using them. But I am told, reliably, that the Russians never stopped their research and development, that they have neutron bombs, made more precise and smaller—and less unthinkable—by digital technology. I am told that because we stopped the R&D, we have no proportionate deterrent against their use, though we have continued to develop other forms of tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons like artillery shells. But here’s a question: Do the Israelis have them, too? I wouldn’t bet against it. Would they use them if their survival was threatened? I wouldn’t bet against that, either.
Will it happen between now and November 5? Unthinkable but not impossible. There are, in fact, a number of possible scenarios:
Iran, with Russia’s help, tests a nuclear weapon next month. I am told this is being considered—an Iranian test would help Trump, theoretically. It would necessitate an American response: What, if anything, might Biden do? If our response is deemed insufficient, Harris might be hurt. If Biden does nothing, it would be disastrous for her. Still, I’m skeptical: Surely, the Israelis—who have thoroughly penetrated the Iranian coms systems—would act to pre-empt such a test. And the Iranians know it, which is why they’ve been so cautious in responding to recent Israeli assassinations. But what if I’m wrong and the Iranians are so freaked by the Israeli successes that they feel the imperative to at least demonstrate that that they have a deterrent?
Israel pre-empts indirectly. A supersonic Houthi missile landed in Tel Aviv last week. It didn’t do much damage. But what if the next one does? We haven’t been very effective in our efforts to stop the Houthi menace to international shipping. It’s sort of embarrassing. Israel could send a message by obliterating the Houthi strongholds. It could, conceivably, use a theater nuclear weapon to send a message—especially if it thinks Iran is about to go nuclear. This, too, is unlikely. Humanity would be outraged. We would be outraged. But Israel would be palpably safer—and the Biden Administration’s failure to restrain Netanyahu would seem weak and redound to Trump’s advantage.
A Ukrainian drone attack gets “lucky” and does serious damage to Russian military facilities—a munitions base was hit in the past few days—or to an apartment block in Moscow, causing hundreds of casualties. Would Putin respond with tactical nukes? He keeps threatening that he will. And if he did, how would we respond? Again, a cautious response would be exploited by Trump, who believes—and is told by the polls—that his main advantage is the appearance of strength.
There are other unthinkable but not implausible scenarios. The Israeli attacks this week certainly raised the ante in this escalating geopolitical game of liar’s poker. You have to wonder what the American response would be if the game goes nuclear. I’d like to believe that we could be as effective as we were in stopping Iran’s missile barrage against Israel a few months ago. But that was a contest involving last-generation technology—and, as the Israelis demonstrated this week, we’re in a new era now. Are we prepared for it?
Another Nightmare Scenario
Trump has said he is going to Springfield, Ohio, to have a rally in a week or so. The possibilities for disaster are legion. Springfield—I’ve slowly come to realize—is the ultimate Trump paranoid scenario: small American heartland city overwhelmed by black, cat-eating savages from a country that is synonymous with anarchy, brutality and disease. A rally in Springfield could be a call to arms for gun-toting Trumpster militia types. At the very least, there could be a nutter or two intent on stirring up trouble. It could explode. American chaos is what Trump’s been selling; he has been fomenting it to prove his point. We know the man has no moral bottom; we know some of his followers are fanatics. An outbreak of race violence—mostly directed against peaceable, hard-working Haitians—is, once again, unlikely but not unthinkable. Especially if Trump thinks he’s losing.
Yeah.
Facing the scary multitude of viciously irresponsible leaders you list (you skipped Korea!), I'm not sure why the one who truly infuriates me is Netanyahu.... maybe it's because I'm Jewish?
It’s hard for me to imagine Israel making itself “palpably safer” by resorting to nuclear weapons in any scenario where it was not itself imminently threatened by them.