The Nightmare Scenario

Few who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 will forget the fear and apprehension they felt. The world stood on the brink of a nuclear holocaust as U.S. ships imposed a blockade to force Soviet missiles out of Cuba. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief as the Soviets agreed to remove their missiles in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba, but all agreed a cataclysmic nuclear war had been only narrowly averted. Of the lessons that came from this episode, the one that stands out is that never again should the United States be put in a position where its cities are so close to nuclear destruction. Many assumed that lesson had been learned as decades of arms control, dtente, and the end of the Cold War seemingly removed the specter of nuclear attack from our collective consciousness.

Well, just when you thought it was safe not to worry about nuclear annihilation, a new crisis has emerged that actually poses a greater threat of an American city being obliterated by a nuclear weapon than anything that occurred during the Cold War: As Pakistan becomes engulfed in chaos, there is a real chance that its nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of extremists determined to kill as many Americans as they can. Although the public has yet to pay much attention to what is happening in Pakistan and there is nowhere near the level of hysteria that gripped the United States nearly 50 years ago, the prospect of a nuclear weapon from Pakistan exploding on American soil is much higher than a Soviet attack from Cuba ever was. If anything can make one nostalgic for the bad old days of the Cold War, what is happening in Pakistan today is surely it.

It helps to first look back at the Cold War to see why the current nuclear threat from Pakistan is so much worse. To be sure, during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union each had some 10,000 nuclear warheads ready to strike each other. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could prevent the other from launching a devastating attack, nor could either country defend itself once a strike had been launched. The conflict between communism and capitalism, a series of regional confrontations, and the natural competition between the two strongest states in a bipolar system all threatened to turn the Cold War hot. And yet, a superpower nuclear war never happened. The reason the Soviet Union and the United States never came to nuclear blows is crystal clear: Deterrence worked. The leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States recognized that launching a nuclear attack would be suicidal, and neither leadership embraced death for their countries or themselves.

What is happening today in Pakistan, sadly, is very different. Pakistan has far fewer nuclear weapons — about a hundred — than the Soviet Union had during the Cold War. But it is far more likely that one of those weapons will be used against the United States because it is not the government of Pakistan that would order them to be launched. Pakistan hosts a wide range of extreme Islamist groups that seek to harm the United States. Of particular concern are the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which originated in Pakistan. Both groups are blood enemies of the United States. Al Qaeda in particular has declared its intention to kill between 4 and 10 million Americans as payback for U.S. policies in the Middle East. If al Qaeda acquired a nuclear weapon and smuggled it into an American city, deterrence would be of little use. What threat could be invoked against al Qaeda terrorists to prevent them from killing millions of Americans once they had the capability to do so? Given its fanatical aims, lack of a return address, and embrace of death, it is difficult if not impossible to conceive of a threat that would dissuade al Qaeda or a similar group from carrying out its horrific mission the way the Soviet Union was deterred during the Cold War.

The key, then, is to prevent extremist groups such as al Qaeda from getting control of a nuclear weapon in the first place. The good news is that nuclear weapons are not easy to make. They require fissile material such as plutonium or highly enriched uranium, which is beyond the capability of any group, including the Taliban and al Qaeda, to manufacture on its own. The only way for nonstate actors to get a nuclear weapon is acquiring one from a country that has one, and the most likely country where that would happen is Pakistan.

Even before the present crisis, Pakistan had been a hotbed of instability. Much of Pakistan’s population is dirt poor; separatist movements have been active throughout the country; half of its people are illiterate; Islamists have penetrated the military; and the government has never exercised control over vast portions of its territory. Democracy has come and gone, with no elected government ever succeeding another. Pakistan has already experienced a horrendous civil war, and it remains the only nuclear-armed state to have experienced a successful coup.

As bad as the situation has been in the past, it has never been worse than it is today. The Taliban has moved from its sanctuaries along the Afghan-Pakistani border to come within 60 miles of the capital city of Islamabad. No longer members of a fringe movement, Taliban fighters have linked up with al Qaeda and other extreme Islamist movements in Punjab, Pakistan’s most important province. The combination of the Taliban’s local appeal with al Qaeda’s global reach presents a nightmarish threat for the United States and much of the rest of the world. The threat is not so much that the Taliban and al Qaeda will take over Pakistan or that the state will collapse. The Pakistani military is probably too powerful for that to occur — at least for now. Rather, the danger is of continued, escalating violence engulfing ever larger portions of Pakistan, with the government increasingly unable to restore control.

A Pakistan plunged into chaos raises the threat that its nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of those who would use them against the United States or its allies. This scenario could come about in several ways.

First, though safe for the time being, the Pakistani government might eventually fall victim to the Taliban onslaught, raising the prospect of a jihadi, nuclear-armed state. Maybe the United States could deter an al Qaeda-Taliban regime from launching a nuclear attack (it would have a return address), but maybe not. Fanatics like the Taliban and al Qaeda are not easily dissuaded.

Second, the weapons might be seized by the Taliban, al Qaeda, or some other extremist group. Such a seizure is most likely when the nuclear weapons are taken from their facilities, assembled, and moved around, as is the case when Pakistan fears a disarming strike from India. One can imagine jihadists deliberately provoking a crisis with India ( la the 2008 Mumbai attacks) precisely to get the nuclear weapons on the road, where they can be grabbed. One can also envision some variant of the above. A Taliban government, infused with religious fervor, might simply give the nuclear weapons to al Qaeda or some similar group for use against the United States, Israel, or India. A collapsing Pakistan might encourage security personnel to sell the weapons they are guarding, to wrest some profit from an otherwise dismal future. A Pakistan engulfed in crisis might simply be unable to defeat a determined assault on its nuclear arsenal, especially if the attackers have inside help. Once seized, it would be child’s play to smuggle the weapons into an American city (just think of the tons of drugs brought into the United States each day). Whatever the scenario, the prospect of Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of religious terrorists is a nightmare no American wants to face.

The leadership of the United States recognizes the seriousness of the Pakistani threat, but has not figured out what to do about it. The United States provided Pakistan with a $100 million program to secure its nuclear arms, but it’s unclear how Pakistan spent the money and whether what it did had any effect. Constraining U.S. efforts are Pakistani suspicions that the more the United States knows about its arsenal, the greater the likelihood that the United States will destroy or seize Pakistani nuclear arms in the event of a crisis. As a result, the United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are located. Nor has the United States placed permissive action links (PALs) — ATM-like locks for which one must know the code to arm the nuclear weapon — on Pakistani nuclear weapons. The Pakistanis are concerned that any U.S. device placed on their weapons would be able to reveal their locations or disarm them remotely. As such, if a Pakistani nuclear weapon is stolen, the thieves might well be able to detonate it. Nor can the United States ensure that the right people are developing and guarding the nuclear weapons. The Pakistanis have told the Americans that they are careful in the selection of their nuclear technicians and guards, but who knows whether they are telling the truth or whether the Pakistani government is even capable of monitoring its personnel. It is worth remembering that the notorious Pakistani arms dealer A.Q. Khan sold sensitive nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea under the very noses of those who were supposed to supervise his activities.

What then can the United States do to reduce the threat from Pakistan? Washington must first do more to mitigate the tensions between India and Pakistan, thus encouraging the Pakistanis to redirect their military away from the Indian threat and toward the more pressing dangers posed by the Taliban. The United States must be more creative in ways that might help the Pakistanis ensure the security of their arsenal, including assisting them with better command-and-control procedures and safer deployment options for their nuclear forces (thus avoiding a hair-trigger posture). For the long term, the United States can work to build up the Pakistani state, improve Pakistan’s education system, enhance its economy (through the elimination of tariffs on Pakistani textiles), and subtly convince the Pakistanis that the moderate Islam for which the country is known is the best path.

Although all of these steps are necessary, none will end the threat of a Pakistani nuclear weapon falling into the wrong hands. So what the United States must do is confront the awful possibility that the Taliban or al Qaeda might one day get its hands on a Pakistani nuclear weapon. To prepare for that contingency, Washington must do more to learn where the Pakistani nuclear arms are located (to destroy or seize them), do a better job at preventing the smuggling of nuclear weapons, and, most horribly, prepare for the nightmare of losing an American city to a Pakistani bomb. That means issues such as continuity of government and public health plans must be made now, for the day after. It also means that Washington must do better at determining the source of a nuclear explosion and think seriously about how to react if one occurs. Lashing out at Pakistan, especially if the regime was not behind the attack, makes little sense. Learning from the Pakistanis just how many weapons went missing, how it happened, and whether it could happen again might not be as emotionally satisfying as a counterstrike, but makes more sense.

Even during the worst days of the Cold War, Americans and Soviets recognized that a nuclear strike would be folly. The same is not true for the groups that are poised to seize Pakistani nuclear weapons. With luck, we may all survive this crisis. But that does not change the realization that an American city faces a far greater threat of nuclear destruction from a wayward Pakistani nuclear weapon than it ever did from a deliberate Soviet attack.