MALE SPEAKER: Good morning.
And welcome to Talks at Google
in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Today it's my great pleasure
to introduce Benjamin Schwartz.
He joins us today to discuss
his book "Right of Boom:
The Aftermath of Nuclear
Terrorism." "Right of Boom"
asks what if.
What if a nuclear
weapon exploded
in a major American
city, and no one
can prove who was responsible?
The devastation is horrifying.
But even more alarming
are the limited responses
available to the United
States government.
What happens next?
In the book, the explosion
occurs in downtown Washington,
DC.
Ben maps out the
likely ramifications
while going deep into
history to explore
the limited range
of options available
to a commander-in-chief.
Ben has served in a variety
of national security positions
within the US
government, including
in the Department of State,
Department of Defense,
and Department of Energy.
This is his first book.
Please join me in
welcoming Ben Schwartz.
BENJAMIN SCHWARTZ: Thank you
for the kind introduction.
I spend a good deal of
time in Washington, DC
in meetings in buildings
like the Pentagon, the State
Department, and the White House.
But after today, I'll be able
to tell my friends and family
that I've really seen the
center of global power,
because I've been to Google.
The forces that this company
has unleashed are truly amazing.
And it's an honor to be
here to speak a little bit
about this book today.
I'll go into my book talk
probably for about 25 minutes.
Then I'm happy to
field some questions
and entertain some discussion.
As a current employee of
the Department of Defense,
however, I am compelled to
begin with two disclaimers.
So please excuse them.
The first is that
I'm here speaking
in my personal
unofficial capacity,
and my remarks don't
necessarily reflect
the positions of the Defense
Department or any other US
government agency.
And as a lowly civil
servant, my remarks
are in no way meant
to be interpreted
as a criticism of the policies
of the Obama administration.
So again, please
excuse me if I don't
get into any critical
comments about current policy.
Now, the book.
Let me begin with an explanation
of the title. "Right of Boom."
As many of you here
probably are aware,
the most deadly threat to
US servicemen and women
in Iraq and Afghanistan
came from roadside bombs,
or improvised explosive devices.
In the defense community, when
we talked about this problem,
we often refer to the
need to get left of boom,
to distinguish the kind of
actions that could be taken
before an attack occurred,
from the response activities--
evacuation, casualty
assessment, things like that,
that would take place
after an attack.
Well, "Right of
Boom" is about what
happens after a bomb goes off.
And the kind of bomb that
my book is focused on
is an atomic bomb.
The book is fundamentally
about a question.
And that is, what could be done
if an atomic weapon went off,
and you couldn't
effectively attribute it
to a foreign government?
A situation in which the
perpetrators deny involvement.
And it's just not possible
even with evidence,
to convincingly prove
who was responsible.
10 years ago, Graham
Allison, a professor
at Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government, a senior official
in the Reagan
administration as well as
in the Clinton
administration, wrote a book
on nuclear terrorism.
What he called the ultimate
preventable catastrophe.
And in this book he put forward
a doctrine of three no's,
or three red lines.
And he asserted that if these
red lines were breached,
the kind of scenario
that I've laid out
would be a significant
possibility if not
an inevitability.
Those were his words,
not necessarily mine.
But the first no is no
new nuclear weapon states.
And he was focused
primarily on North Korea.
The second no was no new
national capabilities
to enrich uranium or
produce plutonium.
And he was focused
primarily on Iran.
And the third no
was no conditions
that could allow for
loose nuclear weapons.
Like many others, at the
time he wrote this book,
he was focused on the dispersed
arsenal of the former Soviet
Union.
Well, as I've said, a decade
has passed since the publication
of his book.
And today, North
Korea is indisputably
a member of the
nuclear weapons club,
having conducted
effective nuclear tests
in 2006, 2009, and 2013.
As we've read quite
recently in the paper,
Iran has a well-established
nuclear program
composed of multiple facilities,
some of them very deeply
underground to make it
difficult for foreign militaries
to hold those sites at
risk to put them in danger.
And while there have been some
very positive developments
with respect to the arsenal
of the former Soviet Union,
I would attribute this positive
trend in significant part
to the efforts of what was
called the Cooperative Threat
Reduction Program.
This was a program that
used your tax dollars
to pay for the destruction
of dangerous materials,
the security of special nuclear
materials in the former Soviet
States, and even the salary
of some former Soviet atomic
scientists.
This positive
development has been
accompanied by quite
concerning trends in Pakistan.
According to Feroz
Khan, a 30-year veteran
of the Pakistani
military, and someone
that rose to the very height of
his country's nuclear weapons
program, Pakistan is in the
midst of a massive expansion
of its nuclear
arsenal, and plans
to deploy tactical
nuclear weapons
in ready-to-use conditions.
We can understand
this is a reaction
to Indian conventional
military superiority.
India being the country
that Pakistan has always
been most concerned about
from a security perspective.
But it's also a quite
troubling development
when one considers the
inherent risks associated
with tactical nuclear weapons,
particularly the risks of theft
or loss of those materials.
And I would add, especially
so in a country like Pakistan.
And so we've gone from a
world of three no's-- Graham
Allison's framework--
to three yes's.
And when thinking
about the three yes's,
it's worth keeping in
mind that the atomic bomb
is 1940s technology.
And there are real
limits to what
can be done to prevent
the proliferation of 1940s
technology.
This is not a novel point.
But I do think it's one
that's not adequately
considered in current
debates and discussions
about nuclear weapons
and nuclear security.
Now I think that for
someone like myself
to come up here and say that
this is a genuine threat,
they should acknowledge
it at the outset
that there were reasonable
grounds for skepticism.
Over the years, we've heard
senior government officials
and others repeatedly issue
warnings of threats-- dire
threats at times-- and then
seen that those threats were not
resonant.
That they really didn't exist.
And in the aftermath of
the truly colossal failure
regarding the assessment
of Saddam Hussein's weapons
program, it's
reasonable for people
to question the competency
or trustworthiness
of US government
officials, especially
those focused on WMD.
And so I don't believe
that looking at this
and questioning it
is-- or in another way
of putting it-- accusations of
Chicken Little-like behavior
among officials like myself
are flippant responses.
And yet, we still are left
with some troubling facts.
I mentioned threats associated
with Iran, North Korean,
and Pakistan.
But the problem goes beyond
those three countries,
and really dates back to
the dawn of the nuclear age.
And the problem is,
dispersed nuclear materials
and the inability to control the
secret behind weaponizing them.
At the very dawn
of the atomic age,
there was actually
great skepticism
among the scientific community
that the secret behind the bomb
could be kept a
secret for very long.
But it's actually still
surprising in retrospect
that some of the most
important disclosures
occurred through official
US government reports.
One scientist that had
participated in the Manhattan
Project testified before
the US Congress in 1947.
And he said, half the
secret behind the bomb
was exposed when the bombs went
off in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And I believe the other
half of the secret
was released when the
war department published
its first report on
the Manhattan Project.
And so the secret
behind the bombs
spread through the loose
lips of scientists,
in part, and through
espionage, but also
through these
public disclosures.
So much so that by
the 1970s, it was
possible for a handful
of post-doctoral students
with rudimentary
training in physics
to actually design a viable
weapon without access
to any classified materials.
This fact compelled the
Department of Energy at one
point to acknowledge
publicly in a report that--
and I'll quote
that report here--
"Classification may delay, but
cannot prevent the acquisition
of a first generation
nuclear weapon."
And the secret
behind the bomb was
accompanied by the spread
of the actual ingredients
for a weapon.
The weapon was spread first
from the United States
to the Soviet Union.
The United Kingdom, France,
China, Israel, India, Pakistan,
North Korea.
And the materials themselves
moved as well, in a way.
Today, public
estimates place around
2,000 metric tons of
weapons usable material
to be in the global stockpiles.
And this material is dispersed
across at least 25 countries
in hundreds of locations.
Some of these locations not
being adequately secure.
The global standard for securing
these materials is called--
and I use the term
standard loosely--
is the Convention on
the Physical Protection
of Nuclear Materials.
But this actually
doesn't precisely
define the requirements
for securing
materials, what would be
considered a baseline standard.
And it really only
applies to about 15%
of global stockpiles-- those
deemed to be associated
with civilian programs.
The remaining estimated 85%
are deemed military materials,
and aren't even subject
to these basic safeguards.
And so what this means to
me is that the material
and the know-how is now
so widely dispersed that
it's plausible for a government
to claim that it cannot
control, and is therefore
not responsible,
for preventing nuclear
warfare or nuclear terrorism.
This is a problem because
the most powerful force
that's prevented the
use of atomic weaponry
since World War II has
been the credible threat
of effective retaliation.
The belief among governments
and citizens that
in the event that their
country, their territory.
their resources, or fellow
citizens from their nation
are used to enable
or conduct an attack,
that they're going to
pay a price, that there's
going to be consequences.
And the reason that
the book focuses
on what happens right
of boom is my concern
that we're getting
to a tipping point,
if we haven't already reached
it, in which nuclear warfare
becomes plausibly deniable.
I'm gonna just note an
example of my concern.
In 2007, the Israeli Air Force
struck a facility in Syria
that was being built with the
assistance of North Korean
nuclear engineers.
A facility that was
intended eventually
to produce plutonium.
What I wonder is,
what would've happened
if this strike hadn't occurred.
The facility went online.
Plutonium was
produced and acquired
by one of the numerous
violent groups
resident in the maelstrom
of today's Syrian Civil War.
And what I wonder
is, would North Korea
be held accountable?
And I wonder if the North
Korean officials that
made the decision to provide
this kind of assistance
before 2007 believed
at that time
that they would be
held accountable
if their actions resulted
in the proliferation
of the atomic bomb, and
even to a non-state actor.
I also wonder about less
direct forms of assistance,
say the failure of a government
official in a friendly country
like France or Japan, to
allocate sufficient funding
for securing
facilities that possess
special nuclear material.
What are the standards
of culpability?
What are the mechanisms to
hold people accountable?
I want to be very clear.
I'm not suggesting here
that nuclear terrorism is
inevitable, or
that it's something
that's likely to happen
tomorrow or next year.
But during the
Cold War, a hot war
between the United States
and the Soviet Union
wasn't inevitable either.
And people nevertheless
spent considerable time
focused on that question.
And governments invested
significant resources
in planning for such a scenario.
And it's my opinion
that it's time
to think seriously
about what happens right
of boom-- right of an atomic
blast-- as Cold War strategists
thought about that scenario
during the standoff
between the capitalist system
and the communist system.
Now what would occur right
of boom is unknowable.
This is a hypothetical.
But the range of
realistic response options
is not inconceivable,
because those options
would be extensions and
adaptations of past policies
and approaches.
And while nuclear terrorism
would be unprecedented,
it actually is a
threat that combines
different types of challenges
that have been effectively
managed in the past.
And what this means is that
it's possible to use history
to think comprehensively
about this problem.
And that's the
methodology of my book.
It's to use historical case
studies to surface lessons
about the choices that
decision-makers would
be confronted with, and
the tools that they would
have available to respond.
I'll go through briefly
the historical topics now
that the book delves into.
The first topic, understandably,
is the history lessons
of efforts in non-proliferation
and counter-proliferation.
Non-proliferation really deals
with international cooperative
activities, while
counter-proliferation
tends to be coercive actions,
and often more unilateral.
When it comes to
nuclear weapons,
non-proliferation
can be traced back
to the Truman administration
and their support for an entity
that they called the Atomic
Development Authority.
This entity was
intended eventually
to have access and
control of the world's
special nuclear materials--
uranium deposits, thorium
deposits, facilities
that produce plutonium.
Now this entity never
came into being.
But the idea behind
it-- the idea
of international cooperation
against this threat--
has lived on in the alphabet
soup of international regimes,
treaties, and the sort of
numerous United Nations
Security Council resolutions
focused on nuclear weapons
and nuclear security.
Say for example, the
work of the IAEA,
the non-proliferation treaty,
and things of that nature.
And these are voluntary efforts.
And in the current
political environment--
left of the kind of catastrophic
event that I've referred to--
this may represent the very best
that's possible with respect
to non-proliferation.
But right of boom, there
could be a new willingness
among people and
governments to empower
an organization like the IAEA
with the expand authorities.
The ability to do things
like confiscate and secure
nuclear material, issue
fines against those
that do not adequately
store their capabilities,
or even grant such an entity
access and some degree
of control over nuclear weapons.
Walter Lippmann wrote that
it's a disease of the soul
to be in love with
impossible things.
And proponents of
grand proposals
that commit nations to surrender
their abilities to organize
violence-- their military
capabilities-- history
has not been kind
to such proposals.
But it is possible that right of
boom, that these kind of things
could be politically feasible.
Now counter-proliferation.
There's a long
history of governments
using coercive means
to try to prevent
the spread of dangerous weaponry
and dangerous materials.
My book, for example,
cites an operation launched
during World War
II by the British
to sabotage a heavy water
reactor in Norway that Hitler
was having
constructed, as well as
instances of commando
raids against vessels
on the high seas engaged
in the transportation
of WMD-related materials, air
strikes like the Israeli air
strike that I've mentioned, as
well as more recent allegations
of sabotage like
the Stuxnet virus
allegedly that we read
about in the press.
In the aftermath of the kind
of scenario I've laid out,
these kind of activities
would certainly expand.
And I think there'd
be some similarity
from the kind of expansion
we saw with respect
to counter-terrorism.
Before the events of 9/11, most
counter-terrorism activities
that the US government
engaged in inside of countries
in which we were not
at war took place
through law
enforcement cooperation
or under intelligence
authorities--
covert action findings.
But after 9/11, the US military
in acknowledged operations,
began participating in coercive
counter-terrorism activities
in a significant way.
And I think that one
of the possibilities
that my book explores
is that right of boom,
you could see a
similar expansion
of coercive activities, but
one focused on nuclear threat
networks more broadly.
Now a second historical topic
that the book delves into
are the lessons of the
70 years of Brinkmanship
between nuclear weapons powers.
The debates and ideas that
went into the doctrines
of massive retaliation--
mutually assured destruction,
and flexible response, as
well as the interaction
between these doctrines
in the official statements
of government officials-- their
warnings to foreign countries--
and the capabilities
that countries
have in terms of
their intelligence
and military arsenals, and
the reputations that countries
have for using these
capabilities-- how all this has
come together to either
produce credible defense
commitments to
establish deterrence,
or fail to do those things.
The history of that tells us
a lot about some of the things
that policymakers have
struggled with with respect
to nuclear terrorism.
And I'll just give
you one example.
A central lesson of the
history of the Cold War
is the supreme importance
of communicating
red lines-- actions
that constitute
a threat to a country's vital
national security interest,
and actions that would provoke
a response by a government.
During the Cold
War, these red lines
were typically
international borders.
And they were literally crossed
when armies marched over them.
And a great deal
of time was spent
developing defense treaties
that committed countries to work
together if their sovereign
territory was violated.
Well today, neither
international law
nor the US Defense policy
communicates red lines
associated with
nuclear proliferation
as effectively as we
communicate red lines associated
with the violation of
international borders.
And that's understandable,
given the historical context.
But that's something that would
likely change right of boom.
And one way that
it could change is
that there could be a
new concept regarding
the presumption of
guilt of countries that
don't participate in
international cooperative
efforts against
nuclear terrorism.
So one of the things
that would be very useful
is to have a database
of signatures
of special nuclear material, so
that in the event that a blast
goes off, you could use
forensics information
to try to identify where
the material came from.
But for that to
be a viable tool,
you need countries
to willingly provide
that kind of information
about their programs.
Well, the idea that I
put forward in the book
is that there could be
a presumption of guilt
even in the absence of
airtight evidence of complicity
for those countries that
refuse to participate
in these kind of
cooperative efforts.
And that is an idea
that you'll find
in some depth in this book.
A third topic-- historical
topic the book goes into
are the enduring lessons
of countering terrorism.
And the aspect of
terrorism that's
relevant to the
scenario laid out here
isn't the fact the
terrorists conduct
brutal violence
against civilians,
or that the terrorist
groups that we
tend to be most focused on today
adhere to radical ideologies.
Rather what's
relevant is the fact
that terrorists don't
occupy fixed territory that
can be pacified.
And so they can't be
managed in the same way
that a government responds
to adversarial countries.
But fortunately there's a long
history of effective response
to violent non-state groups.
And some of the lessons that
one finds from this history--
and the book goes into a
lot of detail on this--
are the following.
The importance of establishing
barriers to movement,
from the Great Wall of China
to today's TSA checkpoints.
The importance of using
economic leverage sanctions
and preventing the movement
of materials and goods
that would enable violent
non-state actors to operate.
The promotion of some
type of accountable
governmental institutions
inside of territories where
violent groups find sanctuary.
And the development
of specialized
paramilitary forces.
In the historical case
studies the book delves into,
we find that
governments inevitably
end up creating some type
of paramilitary capability
that is more mobile
than a police force.
Police forces tend to be manned
by people that live in a town.
And so those people don't go
on expeditionary operations.
They don't leave that
town too frequently.
But paramilitary
forces are also less
costly than conventional,
large-scale military forces.
And therefore they're able
to operate in terrain that's
more difficult to penetrate.
And they're able to operate
for longer periods of time.
And finally, one of the
lessons of the history
of dealing with terrorist
groups is the importance
of punitive and preventative
military expeditions.
And the reason that
these things are unique
is that such operations are
distinguished by the fact
that they don't
have the intention
or aim to destroy the enemy.
They recognize that
sometimes problem solution
is a hubristic conceit.
And problem management is
really the only realistic course
of action.
This is often the case when
dealing with terrorist groups.
And when you try to solve
a problem absolutely,
you often create more problems.
I'll give you one example of
what I'm getting into here.
When it comes to the use
of unmanned aerial vehicles
for counter-terrorism
purposes, for some years
now there's been a bifurcated
debate between those
that say these capabilities
are very effective
and should continue, and those
that say these capabilities
are ineffective and
create problems,
for instance, killing
non-combatants.
Well, what I would suggest
based on the history
that I've referred to is that
sometimes these kind of actions
are necessary, and
should continue,
but that we should
be under no illusion
that they're going
to solve the problem,
that they're going to
win the war on terrorism.
They're just actions that are
necessary to mitigate threats
until broader developments
occur that change the larger
strategic environment.
The final historical
topic I'll mention
is a topic that I don't
think national security
specialists focus on enough.
And that's the role
of dominant notions
of morality and legitimacy when
it comes to military actions.
And the reason this
is an important topic
is because the
notions of legitimacy
that are prevalent
in a society directly
affect the political
feasibility of policy.
And in this scenario
I've laid out what
I mean by policy is the
retaliatory response that
would be possible.
For decades now, US
government officials
have made a lot of
threats and warnings
about what the United States
government would do in response
to nuclear proliferation
or assistance
with respect to
nuclear terrorism.
But it's not clear to
me that these threats
and these warnings
are always believed
by those that hear them,
or that they're believable.
That they're credible.
In 2001, the CIA director
George Tenet flew to Islamabad.
And he threatened the
Pakistani President there.
He said, quote-- "The full
fury of the American people
will be brought to bear
against anyone that assists
Al Qaeda in its efforts.
Especially its efforts to
acquire a nuclear weapon."
I wonder, what is the full
fury of the American people?
What did President Musharraf
think that this meant?
And I wonder, what did
Tenet think that it meant?
I delve into this question
in some depth in the book
by placing it in the context
of what it's meant historically
in the context of American
national security.
Now pundits and
politicians often
use the term unprecedented
to describe the unfamiliar.
But the kind of scenario
that the book delves into
is certainly
something that would
be truly new under the sun.
And so there are limits to
the lessons of the past.
I try to transcend this
problem somewhat in the book
by beginning each chapter
with a fictional narrative.
So there's a scene of
the Secretary of State
on the phone speaking with
our foreign counterparts.
Another with the
Secretary of Defense
conferring with the Special
Operations commander,
discussing what are the range
of the authorities that he has?
Which countries
are Special Forces
authorized to operate in?
What are the risks
that the government's
willing to consider with respect
to countries like India, China,
and Russia?
The purpose of this drama
is not to be dramatic.
This is not a thriller novel.
The purpose is to highlight
real dilemmas, and challenges,
and complexities
that decision-makers
would be confronted with.
And the other purpose of the
fictional aspect in the book
is to inject a temporal
element into the analysis--
the role of time.
The opportunities
and constraints
that policymakers would face
in the immediate aftermath
of an attack would be
different from those that would
exist months and years later.
In the immediate
aftermath of an attack,
there would be tremendous
political pressure for the US
government to
visibly demonstrate
its ability to project power.
And this would likely result
in things like air strikes,
and commando raids, and visible
law enforcement actions.
Things that while
necessary, would
be unlikely to fundamentally
address the problem of say,
plausibly deniable nuclear
warfare, more broadly.
These things would just deal
with immediate political
requirements.
If you look historically,
cataclysmic wars
tend to begin with
the development
of new forms of technology, new
forms of organizing violence,
and only end when new political
arrangements are developed
that are capable of
managing that technology--
those new threats.
And that would certainly
be the case with respect
to nuclear terrorism.
And that would be the work
not of days and weeks,
but of months and years.
Creating new military
intelligence,
law-enforcement
capabilities, and forging
new diplomatic coalitions
and promoting new norms
with respect to
international law.
So those are some
of the questions
that you'll find
raised and addressed
in some way in the book.
Let me close my
remarks by telling you
where this book came from.
It really came from one
judgment and two questions.
The judgment is my
view, as I've said,
that we're getting close to
a tipping point in which we
enter a world where nuclear
warfare is plausibly deniable.
And the questions that I had
after reaching this conclusion
were first, what
could realistically
occur if the kind of tragedy
I've mentioned happened?
And what lessons
from the past would I
want decision-makers
to have on the shelf?
My work in national
security has convinced me
that we don't use history as
frequently or as effectively
as we should when
formulating national policy.
While the problems
of today never
are exactly the same as
the problems of the past,
there are often similarities.
And it's useful to
look and consider
what's been done that's
been effective before?
And what does that mean
for our way forward?
And that was partially
why I wrote this book.
And so the book was really about
satisfying my own curiosity
with respect to those questions.
And my hope is
that others find it
to be at least an interesting
exploration of a troubling--
but I find unfortunately--
all-too-plausible scenario.
And with that I'll close
and field some questions.
AUDIENCE: Mr. Schwartz, thanks
for coming to talk to us today.
You mentioned the
effectiveness of red lines
historically in
containing the Cold War.
We're not in that error
anymore, but we're
also visibly not in the error
of effective redlines either.
I think right of boom we would
have some political consensus
where we could actually
enforce these things.
But left of boom, we've seen
in the last couple of years
the President's ability
to project a redline,
but not enforce it due
to political dysfunction
in our Capitol.
How do think that
contributes to the likelihood
of these sorts of scenarios?
BENJAMIN SCHWARTZ: So for the
history buffs in the room,
you might recall that there's
a long history of the US
government and American
government officials
establishing redlines, even
in the absence of capabilities
to enforce them.
You think about the
Monroe Doctrine.
Present Monroe basically
committed the United States
to expelling all European powers
from the Western hemisphere
at a time where the American
Navy was a small fraction
of what the British had.
And so this is in one
sense not a new problem.
But you're right
to highlight it,
because when the gap between
what we say our defense
commitments are and what we're
actually capable of doing
grows too wide, it
invites adversaries
to probe at our redline.
And that has the
potential to result
in unintended escalation,
which is dangerous.
Because foreign powers
will think, well.
I hear what the American
government says,
and I see what they've
done in the past,
and I see what budget
cuts they're undergoing.
And I don't think they're
going to do anything
if I take this step forward.
And that's a
dangerous situation.
So I think you raise
a very good point.
Usually at these talks somebody
asks, so what's the good news?
Because this is sort
of a heavy subject.
So I think I'll interject with
a little bit of a good news
point, because this
is a serious topic.
The good news is that
during the Cold War,
our parents lived
at a time where
the threat of a truly
apocalyptic scenario
could arise.
I mean, when you look at the
history of the Cuban Missile
Crisis-- particularly some
of the information that
has come to light
in recent years--
you find out that small
miscalculations or decisions
on both the American
side and the Soviet side
really could have resulted
in the launch of weapons
and the deaths of hundreds
of millions of people.
And we don't face that today.
The kind of scenario
described in the book
is a single weapon
going off-- a 15 kiloton
weapon-- which would
potentially kill 100,000 people.
But we're not facing Armageddon.
And we've lived through,
in certain respects,
the most dangerous period when
it comes to nuclear weapons.
But the threat has
adapted and changed.
And it's important that I
think we change as well,
in terms of how we address it.
AUDIENCE: So you've spoken
about unattributable attacks.
How plausible do
you think that is
versus groups
standing up and just
having a land rush of claimants
for this sort of attack?
BENJAMIN SCHWARTZ:
So the question
of who would want
this weapon to go off
without being able to take
credit for it is a good one.
I can think of a
number of scenarios
in which groups would do that.
But the problem I'm
focused on is really
about response--
retaliatory response.
So what you find in the
book is that there's
some ambiguity even when a
government may enable or assist
some type of attack.
I'll give you an
example in recent years.
So for a significant
period of time,
the Syrian government was
utilizing chemical weapons
against the opposition.
And this was very apparent.
You could look at YouTube
and see this stuff
for months and months.
But it took at least
a year for a number
of governments in the
world to acknowledge
that this was in fact being
done by the Assad regime.
Imagine a scenario where
it's a lot less direct.
It's not is if a government is
using the weapons themselves,
but they simply allow a
facility to be poorly guarded.
Or they tell a couple of
people that, hey, there's
special nuclear
material going to be
transported from
one place to another
on this date at this time.
I think it would be effectively
impossible to prove.
And even if you had
a lot of evidence,
it would be very difficult to
establish a political coalition
that would legitimate
a retaliatory response
in that scenario.
And so that's the
problem that I'm really
focused on in the book.
But your point about a
lot of claimants is valid.
And it actually could result
in a similar anonymity.
When you have many
people claiming things,
it's almost similar
to no one claiming it,
because you still can't respond.
Well, thank you for having me.
As I said, it's a real
honor to be at Google.
This is an amazing place.
And thank you again.
[APPLAUSE]
