Breaking Away: The Case for Secession, Radical Decentralization, and Smaller Polities

Opposition to American secession movements often hinges on the idea that foreign policy concerns trump any notions that the United States ought to be broken up into smaller pieces. It almost goes without saying that those who subscribe to neoconservative ideology, or views favoring interventionist foreign policy, treat the idea of political division with alarm or contempt. Or both.

These activists fear that if the US were broken up into smaller pieces, it would be weakened in its ability to act as a global hegemon. This would threaten the US’s current foreign-policy toolkit: invading foreign nations at will, imposing “regime change,” and threatening war with any regime that opposes the whims of the American regime.

For some of us, however, this would be a feature of secession rather than a bug.

Moreover, the ability of the American regime to carry out offensive military operations such as regime change is separate and distinct from the regime’s ability to maintain an effective and credible defensive military force.

Even a dismembered United States would be more than capable of fielding a large and effective defensive military force. A politically divided America remains a very wealthy America, and wealth remains a key component in effective military defense.1 Indeed, as we’ve seen in previous chapters, a group of smaller, decentralized American states is likely to benefit economically from decentralization, further enhancing military capabilities. In other words, bigness is not as important as the extent to which a regime can call upon high levels of wealth and capital accumulation. That analysis, however, concentrated on conventional forces and this leaves us with the question of how the successor states to a post-secession United States would fare in terms of nuclear deterrence. In this case, there is even less need for bigness than in the case of conventional military forces. As the state of Israel has demonstrated, a small state can obtain the benefits of nuclear deterrence without a large population or a large economy. An effective military defense through nuclear deterrence is even more economical than conventional military forces.

Is Proliferation Good?

Before we can proceed, we must address the issue of nuclear proliferation. Since the Second World War, the dominant position in the US military establishment has been that the US regime must be willing to expend enormous amounts of resources to prevent nuclear proliferation—while simultaneously maintaining an enormous nuclear arsenal at the disposal of the US itself. It is assumed that proliferation beyond a small number of states is likely to lead to instability and catastrophic results. The costs and side effects of pursuing a global non-proliferation regime, on the other hand, are not often addressed.

The first influential theories to express doubts about the established non-proliferation narrative was Kenneth Waltz. As summarized by Henry Sokolski:

In 1981, Kenneth Waltz popularized French and American finite deterrence thinking of the late-1950s by asking whether or not nuclear weapons in more hands might be better. His answer was yes. As nuclear weapons spread, he argued, adversaries would view war as being self-defeating, and peace would become more certain.2

Or, as George Perkovich put it, Waltz “has been the most illustrious proponent” of the view that “The one major benefit of nuclear proliferation conceivably would be to create deterrence relationships that lower or eliminate the risk of war between a certain set of adversaries.”3

Waltz was not alone. In more recent decades, Harvey Sapolsky has concluded that nuclear nonproliferation can expand the risk of nuclear war by extending US nuclear guarantees over a rising number of states. By extending nuclear guarantees as a means of preventing proliferation, the nonproliferation regime has the potential to turn regional conflicts—which may sometimes tragically turn regional nuclear conflicts into global ones:

I fear…we have more to fear as a nation from the costs of extended deterrence than form the need to deter additional nuclear-armed enemies…4

Moreover, Sapolsky notes the nonproliferation effort has not actually stopped proliferation, with India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea all having become nuclear-armed states since the implementation of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1970. The fact these new nuclear states have not engaged in nuclear war cannot be attributed to the existence of a nonproliferation treaty, but to the realities of nuclear deterrence as described by Waltz— and by Bertrand Lemennicier in his game-theory based analysis “Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation or Monopoly?”5

The benefits of deterrence also factor in to John Mearsheimers’s writings in favor of limited proliferation, most notably in the context of Mearsheimer’s conclusion that Ukraine would have benefited from maintaining its own nuclear arsenal in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.6

Sapolsky concludes that, for a variety of reasons, “not many nations will seek to acquire nuclear weapons,” even in the absence of a nonproliferation regime.7 He goes on to note, rather, that “[t]he biggest obstacle to getting beyond the NPT is the fear of terrorists using a stolen or otherwise nefariously obtained nuclear weapon to blackmail or destroy civilization.”8

On this, John Mueller has written numerous books and articles.9 Mueller has explained that states—even rogue ones—have no motivation to transfer the control of nuclear weapons to those outside the state’s control. One problem a rogue dictator or oligarch faces is that “there would be too much risk—even for a country led by extremists—that the ultimate source of the weapon would be discovered.” Mueller notes an even greater danger:

[T]here is a very considerable danger to the donor that the bomb (and its source) would be discovered before delivery, or that it would be exploded in a manner and on a target the donor would not approve of—including on the donor itself. Another concern would be that the terrorist group might be infiltrated by foreign intelligence.10

And finally, there are no known cases of “loose nukes,” even in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union:

A careful assessment conducted by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies has concluded that it is unlikely that any of those devices have been lost and that, regardless, their effectiveness would be very low or even nonexistent because they (like all nuclear weapons) require continual maintenance. Even some of those people most alarmed by the prospect of atomic terrorism have concluded, “It is probably true that there are no ‘loose nukes,’ transportable nuclear weapons missing from their proper storage locations and available for purchase in some way.”11

I do not seek to reconstruct or add to the arguments already made  by scholars who have already challenged the common position that proliferation is always and everywhere too dangerous to tolerate. Waltz, Sapolsky, Mueller, and others have provided a useful foundation on which to consider the matter. Ultimately, however, any discussion of secession and the deconstruction of large states into smaller states must address the issue of proliferation because post-secession successor states will have to deal with the maintenance, transfer, or seizure of such weapons when secessionists are able to assert and maintain sovereignty within a new state. An excessive emphasis on nonproliferation tends to produce a bias overwhelmingly in favor of the status quo and stability for existing states—including very large states. This, of course, is a significant obstacle to support for radical decentralization.

After Secession, Who Gets the Nukes?

To gain a better understanding of these issues, we can look to the past to see how secession can actually play out when nuclear weapons are involved. One example we might consider is Ukraine’s secession from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. In 1991, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly to secede and set up an independent republic. At the time, the new state of Ukraine contained around one-third of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. This means there were literally thousands of nuclear warheads within Ukraine’s borders, making Ukraine’s arsenal the third largest in the world. In 1994, Ukraine began a program of denuclearization and today is no longer a nuclear power.

The relations between Ukraine and the new Russian Federation were acrimonious in the early nineties—as now—so this means that the lessons of the Ukraine situation are limited if applied to American secessionist movements. American pundits may like to play up the red-blue division in America as an intractable conflict of civilizations, but these differences are small potatoes compared to the sort of ethnic and nationalist conflicts that have long existed in Eurasia.

Nevertheless, we can glean some insights from that separation.

For example, the Ukrainian secession demonstrates that it is possible for nuclear weapons to pass into the control of a seceding state without a general conflict breaking out. Indeed, Ukraine was not alone in this. Kazakhstan and Belarus “inherited” nuclear arms from the Soviet Union as well. If Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus can all peacefully negotiate a resolution on how to deal with a suddenly decentralized nuclear arsenal, the Americans can pull it off, too.

Nonetheless, the Ukraine situation highlights some of the technical and logistical problems involved in working out who exactly controls nuclear weapons in a post-secession situation.

For example, it was never a simple matter for the Ukrainian regime to assert technical control over land-based nuclear missiles. It is unlikely that Ukraine ever obtained all the tools necessary to actually launch the nuclear missiles within its territory.12

It is likely, however, that Ukraine could have eventually gained this power, as it was already developing its own control system for the arsenal in 1993. Not surprisingly, the Russian regime was unenthusiastic about helping the Ukrainians in this respect. When it came to using nuclear-capable bombers, on the other hand, it appears Ukraine’s regime had total control.13

It is likely the successor states of the US would face similar issues. The use of land-based missiles would be heavily reliant on authorization from whichever faction most recently controlled access and launching authority, even if those missiles are physically located within the borders of a separatist state. It must be noted, however, that the state within which land-based nuclear missiles exist has the ability to prevent usage in most cases. This is because even if the missiles themselves cannot be directly controlled, the personnel that maintains and controls the sites can far more easily be traded out for personnel loyal to the new regime.14

When it comes to submarines and bombers, a secessionist US region might find itself better able to assert control in the short term. Where those bombers and subs end up would have a lot to do with the likely chaotic situation in the wake of the independence movement and shifting borders.

Separatist Regions May Be Unwilling to Give Up Nukes

Ukraine had denuclearized in part due to bribes and pressure from both the United States and Russia.15 Russia wanted Ukraine’s arsenal for obvious reasons. The United States was obsessed with deproliferation, although it naturally insisted on keeping its own massive stockpile.

Neither the US nor Russia had the ability to force Ukraine to denuclearize—short of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, of course. However, Ukraine capitulated to pressure when the Russian Federation, the US, and the UK (and to a lesser extent China and France) pledged in the Budapest Memorandum to protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

In 2014, many interpreted this move as a grand folly when Russia annexed the Crimea from Ukraine and none of the other parties to the memorandum intervened. Ukraine had given up its best guarantee against Russian intervention—its nuclear arsenal—in exchange for weak “assurances” from foreign states.

Some foreign policy scholars—most notably Mearsheimer—had predicted this and advised against denuclearization in Ukraine. Indeed, in 1993, Mearsheimer doubted that Ukraine would cave to denuclearization pressure precisely because reliable assurances from outsiders were unlikely. Even after the Budapest Memorandum became a reality a year later, it was nonetheless a rather weak reed on which to hang denuclearization. As Mearsheimer pointed out, should the Americans fail to provide an effective defense for Ukraine—as ended up being the case with the Crimea crisis—the Americans “would not have to live with the consequences of a Russian attack.”16 Nonetheless, some Ukrainians insist the Crimea crisis is not evidence of a need for a nuclear deterrent.17

Many Americans, however, may be much less sanguine—even to the point of unwarranted paranoia—about the prospects of foreign intervention on American soil. This is why it is best to proceed assuming that at least some successor states to the current US would insist on retaining a nuclear arsenal. After all, while Ukraine might have been betting on the US as the enforcer of the international order, such guarantees would be even more unlikely in the wake of an American secession crisis. Some post-secession American states may seek a self-help system of deterrence.

On the other hand, we should not assume that all successor states to the United States would seek permanent nuclear arsenals. Some would likely give up nuclear programs, just as Sweden and South Africa have abandoned nuclear programs that were nearing completion. While the Ukrainian example of voluntary denuclearization may appear to be a blunder to many now, the situation in North America is different. North America is not eastern Europe with its long history of interstate conflict. In North America, Canada and the United States have been at peace for more than two centuries, and Canada has never made much effort to move toward assembling a nuclear arsenal. Rather, Canada’s proximity to the United States shields it from nuclear threats from outside North America. Any conventional or nuclear arrack on Canada from, say, China or Russia is likely to be interpreted as an attack on the United States, with disastrous consequences for the initial aggressor.

In other words, Canada benefits from what Baldur Thorhallsson calls “shelter” in the international arena.18 Canada requires no nuclear arsenal of its own, because it can use its close alliance with the United States as a substitute.

So long as some successor states of the United States maintain a functioning arsenal, other nonnuclear states in North America will be able to function similarly. It stands to reason that just as the United States in its current form has been at peace with all other former British colonies, it is likely that new North American republics will share a similar fate.

Big States Are Not Necessary:  A Deterrent Nuclear Force Is Entirely Feasible for Small States

A new American republic need not be especially large to maintain a working arsenal.

While a sizable economy and population are extremely helpful in terms of building a large conventional military, these factors are not nearly as important when it comes to a nuclear force capable of deterring foreign powers.

As Waltz has explained, “Nuclear parity is reached when countries have second-strike forces. It does not require quantitative or qualitative equality of forces.”19  If a regime can plausibly hide or move around enough nuclear warheads—“enough” being well under one hundred warheads—to survive a nuclear first strike, that regime is able to deter nuclear aggression from other states altogether.20

This is why Waltz has concluded that “deterrence is easier to contrive than most strategists have believed”21  and that “some countries may find nuclear weapons a cheaper and safer alternative to running economically ruinous and militarily dangerous conventional arms races. Nuclear weapons may promise increased security and independence at an affordable price.”22  In other words, deterrence “can be implemented cheaply.”23

The Israeli state is an important and illustrative case. This is a country with a GDP smaller than Colorado’s and a population smaller than that of the US state of Georgia. Yet, Israel is thought to maintain a nuclear triad of sea, air, and land-based warheads. This is a small state which has taken full advantage of the relatively economical nature of a small nuclear arsenal (estimated to include approximately eighty assembled warheads).

The Value of Minimum Deterrence

Whether or not politicians believe in the use of minimum deterrence has little to do with whether or not it is actually effective, and arms agreements like New START don’t do much to push regimes in this direction.

In a 1990 essay titled “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” Waltz outlines how “strategic arms agreements do not have military, but economic and political, significance.”24

Counting up the total number of missiles in these enormous arsenals does little, since, for nations that are already well above the threshold of achieving nuclear deterrence, these treaties don’t change the military calculus.

What really matters is the perception that the other side has second-strike capability, and this certainly exists in US-Russia relations. Once each regime knows that the other regime has second-strike capability, the competition is over. Deterrence is established. Waltz notes:

So long as two or more countries have second-strike forces, to compare them is pointless. If no state can launch a disarming attack with high confidence, force comparisons become irrelevant….Within very wide ranges, a nuclear balance is insensitive to variation in numbers and size of warheads.25

The focus on second-strike capability is key because pro-arms-race policymakers are quick to note that if a regime is able (with a first strike) to destroy its enemy’s ability to retaliate in kind, then a nuclear war can be “won.”

Second-Strike Capability Evens the Score

But, as shown by Michael Gerson in International Security (2010) establishing second-strike capability—or, more importantly, the perception that a regime has it—is not as difficult as many suppose. Gerson writes:

A successful first strike would require near-perfect intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) to detect, identify, and track all of the adversary’s nuclear forces; recent events surrounding U.S. assessments of Iraq’s suspected WMD [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities forcefully demonstrate the challenges of reliable, accurate, and unbiased information. Intelligence regarding where an adversary’s nuclear weapons are located and if the state is actually planning to attack could be wrong or incomplete, and an attempted first strike based on inaccurate or incomplete information could have far-reaching negative consequences.26

 This can be countered through a variety of methods, including secrecy and the ability to move weapons delivery systems around. This is why the US, Russian, and Chinese regimes have long been so enthusiastic about the so-called nuclear triad. It is assumed that if nuclear weapons can be delivered by submarine, aircraft, and land, then it would be impossible for an opposing regime to destroy all three at once and achieve first-strike victory.

But even in the absence of a triad, an opposing regime that seeks a total first-strike victory has few grounds for much confidence. As Waltz shows, “Nuclear weapons are small and light; they are easy to move, easy to hide, and easy to deliver in a variety of ways.” That is, if a regime manages to move around and hide even a small number of planes, subs, or trucks, this could spell disaster for the regime attempting a successful first strike. Gerson explains:

A nuclear first strike is fraught with risk and uncertainty. Could a US president, the only person with the power to authorize nuclear use and a political official concerned with re-election, his or her political party, and their historical legacy, ever be entirely confident that the mission would be a complete success? What if the strike failed to destroy all of the weapons, or what if weapons were hidden in unknown areas, and the remaining weapons were used in retaliation?27

Nor must it be assumed that a large number of warheads is necessary to achieve deterrence. Waltz recalls that Desmond Ball—who had advised the US on escalation strategies28 —convincingly asserted that the nuclear weapons necessary for deterrence numbered “not in the hundreds but in the tens.”29 Ball contended that a debilitating attack on the US could be achieved with as few as fifty warheads.30

Proceeding on the assumption that an enemy has no warheads left following a first strike requires an extremely high level of confidence, because the cost of miscalculation is so high. If a regime initiates a first strike and misses only a few of the enemy’s missiles, this could lead to devastating retaliation both in terms of human life and in terms of the first-strike regime’s political prospects.

This is why Waltz concludes that a rudimentary nuclear force can achieve deterrence if there is even a small and plausible chance of second-strike capability. A small nuclear strike is nonetheless disastrous for the target, and thus “second-strike forces have to be seen in absolute terms.” Waltz correctly insists that calculating the relative dominance of one arsenal over another becomes a waste of time: “the question of dominance is pointless because one second-strike force cannot dominate another.”31

The conclusion is that a small second-strike force is sufficient. Naturally, this can be attractive to smaller or cash-strapped regimes, such as the Soviet Union, which in its final decades found itself devoting ever larger amounts of its GDP to military spending.

A Minority View

This remains the minority view. Nikita Khrushchev, for example, faced much opposition to his plans to adopt a minimum deterrence posture in the Soviet Union after 1961. Conservatives in the military and Politburo were vehemently opposed to the plan, in part because it included cutting back on spending on conventional military forces. But the opposition was also due to the fact that the hardliners were quite convinced by the perceived necessity of immense, flexible, and overwhelming force.32

In the United States, of course, minimum deterrence has never been very popular, especially among conservatives. For example, spending on the US nuclear arsenal increased 50 percent under Donald Trump from 2016 to 2020. The Pentagon and Congress continue to put sizable faith in maintaining a large, diverse, and expensive arsenal.

In any case, the rejection of minimum deterrence achieves a useful political goal, as described by Waltz:

The claim that we need a seamless web of capabilities in order to deter does serve one purpose: it keeps military budgets wondrously high.33

Clearly, claims that even medium-sized American states—such as Ohio with 11 million people and a GDP nearly as large as that of Switzerland—are too small to contemplate functioning as independent states are unconvincing. Moreover, there is no reason to assume any postsecession American state would seek to act alone in the realm of international relations. Kirkpatrick Sale has pointed out what should be regarded as obvious: “Historically, the response of small states to the threat of…aggression has been temporary confederation and mutual defense, and indeed the simple threat of such unity, in the form of defense treaties and leagues and alliances, has sometimes been a sufficient deterrent” (emphasis added).34

On the other hand, a continuation of the current trend toward political centralization in Washington—and the growing political domination of every corner of the nation by central authorities—is likely to only harm future prospects for amicable separation and peaceful cooperation on the international stage.

• 1Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 1984), pp. 22–25.
• 2Henry D. Sokolski, “Introduction: Is Nuclear Proliferation Still a Problem?,” in Should We Let the Bomb Spread, ed. Henry D. Sokolski (Carlisle Barracks, Penn.: United States Army War College Press, 2016), p. xiii.
• 3George Perkovich, “Could Anything Be Done to Stop Them? Lessons from Pakistan’s Proliferating Past,” in Pakistan’s Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War, ed. Henry D. Sokolski (Carlisle, Penn.: Strategic Studies Institute, 2008), p. 78.
• 4Harvey M. Sapolsky, “Getting Past Nonproliferation,” in Should We Let the Bomb Spread, ed. Henry D. Sokolski (Carlisle Barracks, Penn.: United States Army War College Press, 2016), p. 1.
• 5Bertrand Lemennicier, “Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation or Monopoly?,” in The Myth of National Defense, ed. Hans-Hermann Hoppe (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2003), pp. 127–43.
• 6John J. Mearsheimer, “The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent,” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 52.
• 7Sapolsky, p. 13
• 8Ibid., p. 15.
• 9See John Mueller, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to al-Qaeda (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.)
• 10John Mueller, “‘At all Costs’: The Destructive Consequences of Anti-Proliferation Policy,” in Should We Let the Bomb Spread, ed. Henry D. Sokolski (Carlisle Barracks, Penn.: United States Army War College Press, 2016), p. 76.
• 11Ibid., p. 77.
• 12John J. Mearsheimer, “The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent,” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (Summer 1993): 52.
• 13Ibid., p. 52.
• 14“Good News From Ukraine: It Doesn’t Have Nukes,” National Interest, March 21, 2014, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/good-news-ukraine-it-doesnt-have-nukes. Graham Allison notes the importance of personnel in the post-Soviet Ukraine situation in the National Interest: “Officially, the chain-of-command continued to run from the new President of Russia through communications and control systems to missile officers in Ukraine. Physically, however, the missiles, warheads, officers, and mechanisms for launching weapons resided on the territory of Ukraine. Moreover, the individuals who operated these systems now lived in houses owned by the government of Ukraine, received paychecks from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, and were subject to promotion or firing not by Moscow, but by Kiev.”
• 15Ted Galen Carpenter, “Ukraine’s Surrender of Its Nukes Was a Major Strategic Blunder,” National Interest, September 24, 2019, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ukraines-surrender-its-nukes-was-major-strategic-blunder-83026.
• 16Ibid., p. 58.
• 17“Ukraine has no ambitions to becomenuclear power again—Poroshenko,” Interfax-Ukraine, Ukraine News Agency, December 12, 2014, https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/economic/239730.html.
• 18Baldur Thorhallsson, “A small state in world politics: Iceland’s search for shelter,” Icelandic Review of Politics and Administration, May 31, 2018, http://www.irpa.is/article/view/a.2018.14.1.3.
• 19Kenneth Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” International Security 25, no. 1 (Summer 2000): 5–41, esp. 32–75.
• 20Kenneth Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” American Political Science Review 84, no. 3 (September 1990): 731–45.
• 21Ibid.
• 22Kenneth Waltz, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better,” Adelphi Papers 21, no. 171 (1981).
• 23Kenneth N. Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” in The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics, eds. Robert J. Art, Kenneth N. Waltz (Oxford, U.K.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), p. 113.
• 24Ibid., p. 107.
• 25Ibid., p. 103.
• 26Michael S. Gerson, “No First Use,” International Security 35, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 26.
• 27Ibid.
• 28David Wroe, “Des Ball: the man who saved the world,” The Sydney Morning Herald, December 21, 2012.
• 29Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” p. 105.
• 30Drew Middleton, “Study Says Nuclear War Can’t Be Controlled,” The New York Times, November 18, 1981.
• 31Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” p. 105.
• 32John Erickson, “Détente, Deterrence, and Military Superiority: A Soviet Dilemma,” World Today 21, no. 8 (August 1965): 339, 344.
• 33Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” p. 127.
• 34Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale Revisited (White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green, 2017), p. 312.