An old military adage is to `think like the enemy'. This helps you figure out what he might do. So, think like a dictator, or a state-less soldier or terrorist.
Would a dictator prefer to fund the development or procurement of small, easily hidden biological weapons or large, bulky nuclear weapons? On the other hand, would a state-less soldier or terrorist prefer the easily hidden or the hard to carry?
As far as I can see, a dictator must prefer the large and bulky weapon; but a state-less soldier or terrorist will prefer the small.
Dictators rule countries. A few find themselves near positions of power because their fathers ruled; others gain position through conspiracy. In all cases, to maintain power they must control others who, if given their druthers, would choose a different government.
State-less soldiers or terrorists do not rule. Their intent is to cause distant countries to back away and the rulers of nearby countries to flee.
Dictators lose as their countries become less and less orderly, because their weak supporters, those who `go along' with the government, have less and less reason to support them. Dictators must maintain order and perhaps law.
Contemporary state-less soldiers do not have to maintain anything. They survive through promises. A major promise is order and law. Moreover, since they offer a dictatorship based on traditional notions (and even Marxism is now a `traditional notion'), some potential subjects will perceive them as offering a degree of justice as well.
In Afghanistan, for example, the `students' of the old religion, the Taliban, gained power because their forces offered more order than those they opposed, and because many figured that their espousal of old ideas meant they would provide a kind of justice. Similarly, Al Qaeda says its goal is to remove unbelievers from the Arabian peninsula, remove a corrupt dictatorship from the country, and restore a religious dictatorship.
The dictator of a country will not want anyone else to gain weapons that a possible competitor might use against him. Since he is ruthless — he would not be a dictator if he were not — he is likely to presume that others are, too.
A dictator will assume that if he provides another with a weapon the other will, if he can, use that weapon against the dictator.
For a dictator, the usual means of control are to pick someone from the same or allied clan, who will not have too many contacts with an existing opposition, who can be frightened by the fear that he, his children, or his relatives' children will be tortured to death if he disagrees with the dictator, and who can be bribed to cooperate.
If you come from a society in which changes of power have either come from heredity or conspiracy, and you are not the son of a monarch, then you gained power through a conspiracy. You will presume that others will attempt the same.
Given those presumptions — `facts of life' as a dictator might say — then you will prefer deadly weapons that you can control.
This means you will prefer nuclear weapons that are carried on ballistic missiles rather than on airplanes.
From a personal safety point of view, it is harder, but not impossible, for a dictator to control those who fly airplanes than those who target, fuel, load, and launch missiles. Put simply, the pilot of an airplane might be so ruthless that after he takes off, he may decide to dodge attempts to shoot him down, fly towards you rather than away, and kill you and any hostages you hold nearby, as well as many innocent bystanders.
On the other hand, any one person in the different groups that target, fuel, load, and launch a nuclear missile may figure that one of the other people who watches him will catch him. And in any event, all the people, in the different groups that deal with the missile and its payload, must be brought into a conspiracy — a difficult task.
For a dictator, an easily carriable weapon is even worse than an weapon carried on an airplane. Suppose the dictator thinks of giving his cousin a weapon that the cousin can carry about readily. Either the cousin is incompetent and foolish. In this case, giving him anything more than the rule of a distant province is pretty much a waste. Or else the cousin is competent. If this case, he is more likely to win a struggle. Under such circumstances, a dictator will think of killing his cousin soon as possible, just as Saddam Hussein killed generals who were successful in the war against Iran.
A state-less soldier, on the other hand, may well figure that if he gives a weapon to someone else with the same beliefs, the other will use it against the common enemy.
Moreover, a stateless soldier may want to travel himself or send people to travel to foreign countries in which he must hide from or deceive the local police. In this respect, a stateless soldier is like a dictator before he gains power, a conspirator.
Under such circumstances, it makes sense to avoid carrying anything that could be identified as a weapon; and if a weapon is carried, make it small and concealable.
Consequently, dictatorships will fund ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and stateless soldiers or terrorists will seek portable, hideable weapons
Indeed, the governments of North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Libya are all known to have funded ballistic missile and nuclear weapons purchases or developments. The prediction is that the government of Saudi Arabia, which is known to have purchased missiles, seeks to purchase or has already purchased nuclear weapons, or has helped fund Pakistan's work,
The second prediction is that stateless groups, while not against nuclear or radiological bombs if they can get hold of them and transport them, will prefer biological weapons or powerful poison toxins. If they are worried about detection, then they will eschew weapons for tanker trucks, and the like, which are legal until the very moment they are used to kill. If they are less worried about detection — if they figure, for example, that they can hide a weapon in a plastic container of baby powder — then they will seek such a weapon.
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