Magnus F. Nordenman
Nuclear weapons. Biological weapons. Chemical weapons. Radiological weapons. Tools of violence so uniquely destructive they’ve earned their own classification: weapons of mass destruction (WMD). And they present some of the most vexing problems for national security policy makers and military leaders today. Their use is considered taboo among most nations, and real-world use of them has been relatively rare since the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945. However, acquiring them remains a priority for various regimes around the world—regimes like those of Syria, Iran, and North Korea. Meanwhile, for decades, nations such as the United States and its allies have been working hard to stop the further spread of WMD and to deter nations that already have them from using them—in turn, cajoling, sanctioning, rewarding, and even invading countries that were perceived as posing a WMD threat to world peace. And for decades, these efforts have been met with decidedly mixed results.
But why do WMD remain an attractive option to some nations if their use is a taboo and even keeping them around will potentially land a government in hot water with the international community? Game of Thrones has something to teach us about the power, uses, and risks associated with WMD, on and off the battlefield.
The U.S. military defines WMD as “chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons capable of a high order of destruction or causing mass casualties.”1 The combatants in Westeros, of course, do not have these particular weapons, but some of the warring houses do, at various times, have access to weapons capable of a high order of destruction and causing mass casualties. Wildfire, created by the Alchemists’ Guild in King’s Landing, and the dragons that Daenerys Targaryen nurtures from three petrified eggs given to her as a wedding gift both fit the U.S. military’s description of WMD.
Unlike our world, there seems to be little that deters the active use of WMD in the war for the Seven Kingdoms. This may be due to fact that very few of the combatants have WMD capabilities, so there is consequently little concern that another party may reciprocate in kind. In effect, there is no deterrence to the use of WMD in Westeros. This state of affairs is not unlike the early period of nuclear weapons, when the United States was the only nation that held them. The two atomic bombs dropped over Japan during World War II carried no risk of retaliation with similarly destructive weapons against targets in the United States, and the early Cold War saw serious discussions about the regular battlefield use of nuclear weapons. This tune changed as nations such as the Soviet Union and China began to acquire their own nuclear arsenals. Alas, the situation in Westeros is quite different.
Let’s take a look at the use of WMD during the war for the Iron Throne. It turns out that the contenders in Westeros think about the use of WMD in much the same way as the war-waging states of World War I did, as well as the way in which current dictators, fearful of losing power to either popular uprising or by intervention from the outside, do.
In our world, WMD have been used—and in many other cases, their use has been considered—on the battlefield. During World War I, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom used chemical weapons, such as mustard gas, to weaken the defenses of the adversary before launching an attack. Chemical weapons also generated a psychological effect of fear on the adversary, alongside the painful suffering and often death that afflicted those without protection. These weapons were, however, not without drawbacks. The gas would sometimes waft back over friendly lines as the wind changed direction. Later, tactical nuclear weapons were also considered for battlefield use, although such considerations never became reality. The idea was to drop a small nuclear bomb on the enemy’s defenses and then assault with tanks and infantry through the hole in the defensive line created by the tactical nuclear bomb.
Military planners also recognize a unique defensive role for WMD. States such as North Korea, Iraq, Libya, and Iran could hardly stand up against conventional assaults by, for example, the United States and its allies. In these cases, regimes turn to the threat of WMD as a guarantee that they will not, someday, be subject to violent regime change by foreign intervention. This, in essence, explains the reluctance of countries like North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons; doing so would leave the country open to a conventional attack that it has no way to withstand.
In Game of Thrones, we see wildfire and dragons used both defensively and offensively. During the Battle of the Blackwater, Stannis Baratheon seeks to seize King’s Landing and capture the Iron Throne from its occupant (and his nephew), Joffrey Baratheon, by assaulting the city from both land and sea. The city’s defenses, led by Tyrion Lannister, are nearly overwhelmed by the multidirectional assault, but Tyrion manages to break Stannis’s offensive by using wildfire to destroy much of the attacking naval flotilla. Wildfire turns the tide of the battle in the defenders’ favor, enabling them to successfully defend King’s Landing.
Later, during Daenerys Targaryen’s invasion of Westeros, she uses dragons to great effect against the Lannister army at the Battle of the Goldroad. It is indeed a classic case of using WMD to breach the enemy’s line in order to give other ground units the opportunity to exploit the breach. During the battle, the Lannister forces form up to meet the Dothraki cavalry charge, but their formations are overcome by Daenerys’s dragons, which burn huge holes in their lines. The mobile Dothraki cavalry charge through these gaps, operating not unlike modern tank forces, to finish the fight against the Lannisters.
We see another case of WMD breaching defenses when the White Walkers use dragon fire to collapse a part of the Wall, along the northern border of the Seven Kingdoms. This example also points toward one of the risks inherent to WMD—the chance, however small, that another actor may seize them and use them for nefarious purposes. In the world of Game of Thrones, the White Walkers get their hands on one of Daenerys’s dragons; in the real world, counterproliferation activities are driven in part by the fear that a terrorist group might steal a nuclear weapon from an unstable state. As season 7 closes, WMD have enabled the White Walkers to overcome the Wall’s defenses, something that they had been unable to accomplish with the weapons they previously had at their disposal.
But WMD are not only of interest to states for their value on the battlefield or for their ability to deter a conventional attack by a far stronger adversary. They are also attractive because holding them, and occasionally using them, can keep a regime in power for decades longer than they would otherwise survive. Indeed, most instances of WMD being used since the Second World War have been related to regime survival, rather than combat operations. Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the restive Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s. He also used them against Shia Muslims who rose up against him, with the encouragement of the United States, in southern Iraq after Saddam’s forces were ousted from Kuwait in 1991.2 Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has also used chemical weapons on several occasions, against rebels and civilians alike, as part of his effort to remain in power during that country’s civil war.3 In this context, the psychological effects of WMD are especially important to a regime, in order to keep the population cowed. Indeed, this is a likely explanation for why Saddam Hussein refused to fully account for his lack of WMD, even when risking an all-out invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003. Publicly admitting he had no WMD could very well have led to uprisings, perhaps supported by Iran, against the regime in Baghdad.4
Similarly, in Westeros, rulers use wildfire and dragons to maintain their rule. Cersei Lannister, for example, uses wildfire to kill the High Sparrow and his followers at the Great Sept of Baelor in King’s Landing, thereby ending that particular challenge to the House Lannister and its control over the capital. Daenerys Targaryen is also no stranger to using her dragons to strike fear in those who may challenge her. After the Battle of the Goldroad she persuades surviving enemy troops to fall in line by publicly executing Randyll and Dickon Tarly with the help of her dragons.
A recurring theme within debates about WMD in national security circles is that some regimes cannot be trusted with such weapons due to the regimes’ instability, the risk that they might not act entirely rationally, or the fear that they will hand over their WMD to nonstate actors such as terrorist groups that cannot be deterred. This formed part of the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and has consistently been a large part of the debate around North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability. Also, after the end of the Cold War, the United States and the West spent considerable sums of money to secure the nuclear weapons of the crumbling Soviet empire, in order to ensure that they, or their components, did not end up on the international black market. In the world of Game of Thrones, this is also a very real problem.
Aerys Targaryen—the Mad King—began as a kind ruler of Westeros but was later overtaken by hallucinations and intense paranoia. He executed and tortured many who he thought plotted against his rule. As his actual enemies closed on King’s Landing, the Mad King ordered King’s Landing and its population to be destroyed with wildfire, all the while believing that he could not be killed by it, thinking himself a dragon in human form. Before he could go through with the plan, Jaime Lannister killed him in the keep, thereby ending not only the Mad King’s rule but also that of the House Targaryen.
Game of Thrones points to the inherent attractiveness of WMD to some states and terrorist groups, even as the international community works hard to contain, control, and eliminate these weapons. The use of WMD in the real world is also sure to turn a regime into an international pariah. Witness the Saddam regime in Iraq or the Assad-run state in Syria. But WMD can, if properly applied, turn a military’s fortunes on the battlefield, overcome strong defenses, and deter an attack from a superior enemy. In addition, WMD can keep a population in line, wipe out domestic opposition, and keep a ruler in power for a long time. That is why, in spite of ambitious efforts over decades to end their production and use, an array of states and nonstate groups seek to acquire them. And they remain attractive even though seeking and keeping them can mean decades of crippling sanctions, international isolation, and even military strikes. But Game of Thrones also points to the inherent risks of developing and maintaining a WMD arsenal and what can happen when a state loses control over its stock or when the ruler is not entirely rational.
The Game of Thrones world is one where might makes right, and this is certainly true when it comes to the use of wildfire and dragons in the War for the Iron Throne. Little suggests that our own world will do much better when it comes to WMD.
1. Department of Defense Strategy for Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington DC: U.S. Department of Defense, June 2014), 17, https://archive.defense.gov/pubs/DoD_Strategy_for_Countering_Weapons_of_Mass_Destruction_dated_June_2014.pdf.
2. See, for example, Michael Nguyen, “Report Confirms Iraq Used Sarin in 1991,” Arms Control Today, January 1, 2006.
3. Krishnadev Calamur, “Assad Is Still Using Chemical Weapons in Syria,” Atlantic, February 6, 2018.
4. Glenn Kessler, “Saddam Hussein Said WMD Talk Helped Him Look Strong to Iran,” Washington Post, July 2, 2009.