This is actually the most plausible scenario for if/when fusion is achieved by any nation state. There is evidence that China is secretly working on fusion reactors and there's no reason to assume that the Russian and US militaries wouldn't do the same.
The first nation to achieve economically viable fusion will have a huge advantage over others. All of these open experiments like NIF are the equivalent of public ML research which is years behind what happens at secret research labs in Goog etc. From a game theory point of view, there is a huge incentive to work on fusion alone and in secret, and not tell anyone about it until long after the desired result is achieved.
Fusion is a similar technological leap to attaining nuclear weapons, and we're only now learning about the extreme levels of secrecy and investment that the US and other nations afforded to those projects.
The first nation to achieve economically viable fusion will have a huge advantage over others. All of these open experiments like NIF are the equivalent of public ML research which is years behind what happens at secret research labs in Goog etc. From a game theory point of view, there is a huge incentive to work on fusion alone and in secret, and not tell anyone about it until long after the desired result is achieved.
Fusion is a similar technological leap to attaining nuclear weapons, and we're only now learning about the extreme levels of secrecy and investment that the US and other nations afforded to those projects.