The oligarch’s guide to sitting out a nuclear winter

I’ve been thinking a lot about the apocalypse in the last few days, and wondering what options oligarchs believe are available to help them escape it. In Mark Lynas’s new book about atomic weapons, he helpfully provides a table showing what percentage of each country’s population would die during or immediately after a nuclear war. The sheer number of places that have 100 or a number in the high 90s in the right-hand column is a bit bleak, but if you think like an enabler you can see opportunity

New Zealand is often touted as the go-to destination for riding out the apocalypse. Vivos has apparently built a 300-place luxury bunker on the South Island, and Rising S Bunkers, an American company that specializes in the building of doomsday shelters, have been busy too. Peter Thiel obtained New Zealand citizenship, though tragically was not able to build his own mega-bunker after he failed to get planning permission. But that has not stopped other billionaires from planning their escapes to the land of the long white cloud.

BILLIONAIRE BOLTHOLES

Politicians in Wellington are only too happy to help. In April, they eased up on the rules around the country’s golden visa programme to attract more of this sweet flight capital, removing a requirement that applicants speak English, and reducing the cost. You now only need to spend 21 days in the country to establish residency, down from three years, which is good news for tech barons keen not to have to pay tax or make friends or stuff like that.

“In the past, the vast majority of applicants were looking for tax havens,” former immigrant minister Stuart Nash told the FT. “Now they’re looking for safe havens.” Nash is a man for the snappy catch phrase. Since leaving government, he has set up Nash Kelly Global, a relocation company, which has the distinctly yuk for an ex-politician but very on-brand tagline: ‘What they don’t tell you about New Zealand. It’s not what you know. It’s who you know.’

But I’m afraid New Zealand is not quite the safe option it’s been cracked up to be. For a start, how safe is New Zealand? Lynas’ deaths table shows that in the event of war, 68 percent of New Zealanders would be dead after two years of nuclear winter. Okay, that’s better than Russia (98 percent), the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany (99 percent) or Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates (100 percent), but it’s still not great. And expensive fortifications wouldn’t help: billionaires would not be able to hide forever from gangs of survivors and would be, Lynas writes, “winkled out of their bunkers and hiding places like fat grubs”.

So, which countries do offer the best survival prospects in the event of Trump or Putin getting an itchy trigger finger? Iceland, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Haiti and – painfully no doubt for Kiwis – Australia all have a 0 percent death rate. At present, Iceland does not sell visas, and Australia closed its investor visa programme last year, so it’s no good to you even if you have the cash to flash. But there are plenty of options among the others: Uruguay’s is a bit pricey, but Costa Rica will sell you residency for just $150,000, and Argentina is practically giving it away.

I’m surprised no one’s started marketing these countries to rich people worried about nuclear war: ‘If life sends you nuclear winter, enjoy the fresh powder.’ Mr Nash, you can have that one for free.

ESCAPE TO MARS

Of course, everywhere on Earth is going to be impacted a bit by nuclear war, so why not abandon our planet altogether? Elon Musk’s current plan is for a first unmanned mission to take off for Mars next year, with people due to land on the red planet in 2028, and for a self-sustaining colony to exist within 20 years.

SpaceX has released a handy new video simulation of the journey, though I hope for the Muskonauts’ sake that they won’t have to listen to that dreadful music for the entire eight-month trip. If I was as rich as Musk, I’d have licensed Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ at least. The upside to living on Mars of course is that you wouldn’t be on a planet that could be rendered uninhabitable by a nuclear bomb. The downside though would be that you’d be on a planet that’s already uninhabitable. So, perhaps it would be better to focus on securing the future of Earth instead?

“Surely the best way to protect the human species in coming decades is to focus on resolving the tensions we face at home, from unbridled nuclear proliferation to strategic global competition and realignment,” wrote noted physicist Lawrence Krauss.

Predictably enough, Musk dismissed Strauss’ argument by tagging @IfindRetards in reply (such a hilarious guy!). But Strauss raises an interesting point. Cold War-era treaties, negotiated to prevent an extraterrestrial arms race, declare that there is no sovereign territory or territorial appropriation in space. Yet, according to Starlink’s terms of service, Mars is “a free planet”, and no Earth-based powers have authority there: “Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”

That looks a lot like Musk is claiming the right to govern Mars as its settlers see fit. Of course, it’s not impossible that the new settlers (who will have been chosen by Musk, trained by Musk, brought to Mars by Musk’s rocket, and who will be entirely dependent on Musk for future resupply) might set up a genuinely democratic system of self-government. But it’s also possible that Musk might want to claim Mars for himself. That would be in violation of Earth’s treaties, and therefore bad. It would also – considering the havoc wreaked by Musk in his brief stint in government – be a pretty grim prospect on its own terms.

Of course, you don’t need to go to Mars to set up your own government. Right here on earth we have Eleutheria, which is now aiming to negotiate a 99-year lease for a bit of Tuvalu to build a “free private city”, having given up on the idea of building a state in a Bir Tawil, an isolated, unclaimed bit of desert between Egypt and Sudan. It is indeed easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

Coda