Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: hair-trigger alert

  • The Missile Crisis that Never Went Away

    This article was originally published by Truthdig.


    Fifty years after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the US and Russian nuclear confrontation continues. Both nations still keep a total of approximately 800 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), armed with more than 1,700 strategic nuclear warheads at launch-ready status, able to be launched with only a few minutes warning.


    The US now has 450 land-based Minuteman III missiles that carry 500 strategic nuclear warheads. As their name implies, they require at most several minutes to be launched. The US also has 14 US Trident submarines and normally 12 are operational. Each Trident now carries about 96 independently targetable warheads and 5 Tridents are reportedly kept in position to fire their missiles within 15 minutes. This adds another 120 missiles carrying 480 warheads that qualify as being “launch-ready”.


    The missiles and warheads on the Trident subs have been “upgraded” and “modernized” to make them accurate enough for first-strike weapons against Russian ICBM silos. Missiles fired from Trident subs on patrol in the Norwegian Sea can hit Moscow in less than 10 minutes. 


    Russia is believed to have 322 land-based ICBMs carrying 1,087 strategic nuclear warheads; at any given time, probably 900 of these are capable of being launched within a few minutes warning. Many of the Russian ICBMs are more than 30 years old. According to a former high-ranking Soviet officer, the commanding officers of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces have the ability to launch their ICBMs directly from their headquarters, by-passing all lower levels of command.


    The Russians also have nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles kept at launch-ready status, although Russian subs are not always kept in position to launch (unlike the US Tridents). Missiles launched from Russian submarines on patrol off the US East Coast can, however, hit Washington, D.C., in about 10 minutes.


    The combined explosive power of US and Russian launch-ready nuclear weapons is roughly equivalent to 250 times the explosive power of all the bombs exploded during the 6 years of World War II.  It would require less than one hour for the launch-ready weapons to destroy their targets.


    Both the US and Russian presidents are always accompanied by a military officer carrying “the nuclear football” (called cheget in Russia), a communications device resembling a lap-top computer, which allows either president to order the launch of his nation’s nuclear forces in less than one minute. Both nations still have officers stationed in underground ICBM command centers, sitting every moment of every day in front of missile launch-consoles, always waiting for the presidential order to launch.


    For decades, hundreds of US and Russian ICBMs have been kept at high-alert primarily for one reason: fear of a surprise attach by ICBMs or SLBMs. Since a massive nuclear attack will surely destroy both the ICBMs and the command and control system required to order their launch, the military “solution” has always been to launch their ICBMs before the arrival of the perceived attack. And once an ICBM is launched, it cannot be recalled.


    Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, both the US and Russia developed and deployed highly automated nuclear command and control systems, which work in conjunction with a network of early warning systems and their nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. The possession of this complex integrated network of satellites, radars, computers, underground missile silos, fleets of submarines, and bombers give both nations the capability and option to launch most of their ICBMs upon warning of attack. 


    This creates the possibility of an accidental nuclear war triggered by a false warning of attack. During peacetime, when political tensions are low, conventional wisdom has it that there is essentially no chance that a false warning of nuclear attack could be accepted as true. However, during an extreme political crisis, or after the advent of military hostilities, such a false attack warning could become increasingly likely and vastly more dangerous.


    ICBMs remain out of the sight and the minds of most Americans, yet all the necessary military ingredients for Armageddon remain in place. And despite past presidential announcements that another Cuban Missile Crisis is “unthinkable,” it certainly remains possible.


    It is naïve to assume that we will never again be in a military confrontation with Russia – particularly when US/NATO forces and US nuclear weapons remain stationed near Russian borders in Europe, and we continue to surround Russia with missile defense facilities in the face of military threats against these facilities from the Russian president and top Russian military leaders. 


    In March, 2012, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote to one of us (in a personal letter), “One cannot help agreeing to the conclusion that the deployment of missile defense system at the very borders of Russia, as well as upbuilding the system’s capabilities increase the chance that any conventional military confrontation might promptly turn into nuclear war.”


    What happens if NATO collides with Russia somewhere in Georgia, Kaliningrad or perhaps Ukraine, shots are fired and Russia decides to carry out its threats to take out US/NATO Missile Defense installations? What happens if the US should have a president who considers Russia the US’s number one geopolitical foe?


    For many years it has been standard Russian military procedure to preemptively use nuclear weapons in any conflict where it would be faced with overwhelming military force, for example, against NATO.  The Russians oddly call the policy nuclear “de-escalation,” But it would be better described as “limited nuclear escalation. It was developed and implemented after the US broke its promise not to expand NATO eastward (following the reunification of Germany) and NATO bombed Serbian targets.


    The Russian “de-escalation” policy presumes that the detonation of nuclear weapons upon the opposing side will cause them to back down; it is essentially a belief that it is possible win a nuclear war through the “limited” use of nuclear weapons. But in the case of NATO, the war would be fought against another nuclear power. 


    Suppose that NATO responds instead with its US tactical nuclear weapons now based in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey)? Once an exchange of nuclear weapons takes place, what are the chances that the war will remain “limited”?  


    US and Russian strategic war plans still contain large nuclear strike options with hundreds of preplanned targets, including cities and urban areas in each other’s nation. As long as launch-ready ICBMs exist, these plans can be carried out in less time than it takes to read this article. They are plans that spell disaster for both countries and for civilization.


    Cooperation, rather than conflict, still remains possible. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov writes, “Despite the growing hardship we do not close the door either for continuing the dialogue with the US and NATO on missile defense issues or for a practical cooperation in this field. In this respect we find undoubtedly interesting the idea of a freeze on US/NATO deployments of missile defense facilities until the joint Russian-US assessment of the threats is completed.”


    This could be an important step towards lowering US-Russian tensions, which continue to revolve around their more than 60-year nuclear confrontation. Ending this confrontation can prevent the next Missile Crisis. Another important step would be the elimination of first-strike ICBMs that continue to threaten the existence of our nation and the human race.  This would increase the security of the American people, even if it were done unilaterally.


    The US and Russia remain obligated under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue negotiations in good faith on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.  Fifty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is well past time to conclude these negotiations.  No issue confronting humanity is more urgent than bringing such negotiations to a successful conclusion and moving rapidly to zero nuclear weapons.

  • Seminar on Lowering the Operational Readiness Status of Nuclear Weapons Systems

    On June 24, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held a seminar in Geneva for invited diplomats and civil society leaders on “The Importance of Lowering the Operational Readiness Status of Nuclear Weapons Systems” at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. The seminar encouraged delegates to the Conference on Disarmament to support efforts to de-alert nuclear arsenals. Furthermore, during the seminar, Mr. Steven Starr (Senior Scientist for the Physicians for Social Responsibility and Associate of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation) and Mr.  Dominique Lalanne (Chair of Abolition 2000 Europe) described the threat of launch-ready weapons to nations and people. They further discussed the connections between lowering the operational readiness status of the nuclear weapon systems and the Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC).

    In the discussion of the threat of launch-ready weapons, Starr stated that the US and Russia have at least 1739 strategic nuclear weapons that remain on high alert. He illustrated that the total combined explosive power of all deployed and operational US and Russian nuclear weapons are 600 times more destructive than the total combined explosive power of all bombs detonated in World War II. Additionally, he underscored that launch-ready weapons, including land-based ICBMS and sea-based SLBMs, can be launched with only a few minutes warning. This high state of operational readiness makes accidental nuclear war possible through a launch in response to a false alarm or an unauthorized launch. Starr further described the ecological ramifications of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, and the U.S. and Russia respectively.  India and Pakistan are believed to each possess 100 nuclear weapons with an average yield similar to the atomic bombs, which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Starr reviewed recent peer-reviewed studies that predict the detonation of 100 of these weapons, in the megacities of India and Pakistan, would create nuclear firestorms, which would cause 5 million tons of smoke to rise above cloud level, into the stratosphere.  This smoke would block 7% to 10% of warming sunlight from reaching the surface of the Northern Hemisphere; this would create the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years.  Scientists predict this would cause massive reductions in agricultural production leading to global famine that would kill up to 1 billion people.

    The detonation of the launch-ready U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals would cause up to 150 million tons of smoke to rise into the stratosphere and block up to 70% of sunlight from reaching Earth’s surface. This would create daily sub-freezing temperatures in North America and Eurasia for several years, and produce Ice Age weather conditions on Earth.  This would eliminate growing seasons for a decade on all continents, and cause most humans to perish from starvation.

    Regarding the relationship between lowering the operational readiness status of the Nuclear Weapon Systems and the Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC), Lalanne expressed his disappointment that the majority of the Nuclear Weapon States refuse to remove their weapons from their high-alert status and commence negotiations on a NWC. He further argued that their resistance is closely associated with their concerns that nuclear deterrence would be jeopardized by de-alerting their nuclear weapon systems. Moreover, he emphasized that the States must realize that the ability to launch an instantaneous nuclear strike is a not a fundamental aspect of nuclear deterrence.  The elimination of launch-ready nuclear weapons is a necessary step towards further significant reductions of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and movement towards the participation of the Nuclear Weapon States in a NWC.

    Overall, the speakers informed delegates on the need for the international community to engage in and support multilateral measures to lower the operational readiness status of the nuclear weapon systems.

  • De-Alerting and the Nuclear Weapons Convention

    Dominique LalanneSignatories to the NPT took a small but significant step toward the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world in May 2010 when they agreed that: “All States need to make special efforts to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.”. The most significant step was in December 2010 at the General Assembly, 65th plenary meeting, 8 December 2010, 133 yes, 28 no, 23 abstain for the vote of the Convention:  ” The General Assembly Calls once again upon all States immediately to fulfill that obligation by commencing multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination”.


    Results for nuclear weapon States : China (yes), France (no), Russia (no), UK (no), US (no), India (yes), Pakistan (yes), Israel (no).


    The Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) also committed in the 2010 NPT Final Document to “Consider the legitimate interest of non-nuclear-weapon States in further reducing the operational status of nuclear weapons systems in ways that promote international stability and security.”. And most significant is the vote on de-alerting at the UN General Assembly with only 3 votes “no” by France the UK and the US.


    So the NWS have resisted any commitment to go further in either area – i.e. to immediately de-alert and remove all nuclear weapons from high operational readiness or to commence negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention in the near or intermediate future. This resistance is linked to their continuing reliance on nuclear deterrence, and a mistaken belief that nuclear deterrence would be jeopardized by de-alerting existing nuclear weapons systems.


    Progress on de-alerting and NWC negotiations could be enhanced by promoting them not as the immediate end to nuclear deterrence, but as processes which lower the role of nuclear weapons gradually while simultaneously strengthening strategic stability.


    In this context, progress on de-alerting will make NWC negotiations more feasible. Equally, the initial exploration by NWS of the legal, technical and political elements of a nuclear-weapons-free regime (achieved through a NWC) will generate greater confidence in the possibility of security without nuclear deterrence, making the immediate de-alerting of nuclear weapons more palatable.


    There are many reasons to focus on de-alerting in the short term while simultaneously considering and promoting NWC negotiations.


    The U.S. and Russia, with 95% of the world’s nuclear weapons, still maintain high-alert postures which permit each of their Presidents to order the launch of more than 1000 strategic nuclear warheads in a matter of a few minutes. Both nations remain frozen in their Cold War nuclear confrontation, constantly poised to unleash massive nuclear forces in response to a perceived nuclear attack from the other side.


    Fear of a surprise nuclear attack is what causes leaders in the nuclear weapon states to keep their nuclear forces ready to “Launch On Warning” of attack. Although both the US and Russia deny that they would employ a “Launch On Warning” strategy, it is clear that they retain the capability and option to do so.


    The maintenance of launch-ready, high-alert nuclear weapons allow these two states to almost instantly initiate an accidental nuclear war though technical or human error, miscalculation, madness or stupidity. This is true, because a false warning of attack – believed to be true – has the potential to trigger a nuclear “retaliation” which in fact would be a nuclear first-strike.


    High-alert nuclear postures create a universal fear of impending nuclear incineration, and thereby prevent any fundamental change in the doctrine of nuclear deterrence.  As long as nuclear forces remain on high-alert, the elimination of nuclear weapons remains impossible and accidental nuclear war remains possible.


    The Nuclear Weapon States must accept that an instant nuclear strike is not a fundamental component of deterrence. Such a change in mindset would open the way to a variety of practical steps which would prevent a nuclear launch.


    The current high-alert postures in the US and Russia, which  in reality are supported by an unofficial policy of Launch On Warning, could be changed, without any risk, to an official policy of No Launch Before Detonation (NLBD).  Under NLBD, the launch of nuclear forces in response to a warning of nuclear attack, comprised only of electronic data from Early Warning Systems, would be prohibited.  The launch of nuclear forces could not then be triggered by a false warning generated by cyberwarfare, a failure of technical systems, computer hackers, or the launch of non-nuclear warheads carried by strategic missiles.


    NLBD could be almost immediately instituted via Presidential decree (without negotiation, legislation, and minimal expense) and should be used as a confidence building measure as part of a de-alerting process.  Accidental, unauthorized or unintended nuclear war caused by a false warning of nuclear attack would become impossible through this simple change in policy. 


    The actual elimination of high-alert forces would make it physically impossible to launch upon electronic warning of attack. There are many possible ways to de-alert nuclear weaponry in a verifiable, stepwise manner, which are on record and require only sufficient political will to implement.


    While the U.S. and Russia  choose to maintain high-alert postures (and the Launch-On-Warning capabilities that high-alert weapons confer), none of the other NWS (whose nuclear arsenals number in the hundreds of weapons) maintain states of high operational readiness. China has never had high-alert weapons, France and England have each made conscious decisions not to maintain ground-based launch-ready nuclear forces. Furthermore, it has been reported that U.K nuclear forces require days to launch, and French nuclear forces require some hours to fire. Such a change, if made to US and Russian nuclear arsenals, would do much to remove the threat of an accidental apocalypse from the global agenda. The French and UK militaries should be encouraged to talk to their US and Russian counterparts with the aim of persuading them of the merits of a similar change in posture.


    For France and the UK, missiles could be removed from submarines without altering a policy of minimal deterrence. The international context does not need a possibility of rapid nuclear strike from either of these two Nuclear States. In case of terrorist attack (generally considered to constitute the most likely danger of producing a nuclear detonation), a nuclear retaliation from a submarine is absolutely not appropriate. No nuclear strike is appropriate for a non-state sponsored terrorist attack.


    The real change required here is a change of mindset, of imagination and spirit. Nuclear war should no longer be held up as the instant solution for “national security”, especially when our best scientists warn that nuclear war can end human existence. Our “security” depends primarily upon our ability to understand the problems we face in common; we are a single species threatened with imminent nuclear extinction.


    De-alerting is the first step of the Convention. Without de-alerting the Convention is impossible to be accepted. The change of mindset is the first step for the abolition of nuclear weapons. De-alerting makes this change.

  • Launch-Ready Nuclear Weapons: A Threat to All Nations and Peoples

    2011_06_24_starr.pdf

  • US and Russian Nuclear Missiles are Still on Hair-Trigger Alert

    Just after midnight, in a secret bunker outside Moscow, the warning sirens began to blare. A simple, ominous message flashed on the bunker’s main control panel: Missile Attack!

    It was no drill. A Soviet satellite had detected five U.S. nuclear missiles inbound.

    The control computer ordered a counterstrike, but the bunker commander, a nerdy lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov, acting on a hunch, overrode the computer and told his Kremlin superiors it was a false alarm. The Soviet brass quickly stood down their missiles, saving 100 million Americans from nuclear incineration.

    This brush with Armageddon happened more than two decades ago, but nuclear missiles are still on hair-trigger alert in Russia and the United States. Today, they may be even more vulnerable to an accidental or renegade launch than they were in Petrov’s day.

    “The security of both nations should not be dependent on the heroic act or good judgment of a single individual,” said Sam Nunn, the former senator from Georgia.

    Long active in anti-proliferation efforts such as the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Nunn is leading a campaign to persuade U.S. and Russian leaders to take their thousands of strategic nuclear warheads off hair-trigger alert, a status that remains in effect more than a decade after the Cold War ended.

    “The chances of a premeditated, deliberate nuclear attack have fallen dramatically,” Nunn said in an interview with Knight Ridder. “But the chances of an accidental, mistaken or unauthorized nuclear attack might actually be increasing.”

    In his 2000 election campaign, President Bush called the hair-trigger status “another unnecessary vestige of Cold War confrontation” that creates “unacceptable risks.”

    The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which took effect 10 years ago this month, doesn’t address hair triggering. Nor does the Treaty of Moscow, which Bush signed with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2002 to reduce the size of the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals.

    Nunn believes the hair-trigger status has become “the most dangerous element of our force posture.”

    A hair trigger means missiles are launched – either from land or sea [i.e., Trident] – upon the warning of an attack. That is, within about 15 minutes of a confirmed warning. In theory, the assurance that a retaliatory attack would be launched before the missiles could be destroyed would deter either country from trying a nuclear sneak attack.

    “This is the logic of the Cold War – Mutual Assured Destruction,” said Daniil O. Kobyakov, a nuclear expert at the PIR Center, a policy studies institute in Moscow. “De-alerting requires a change in rationale. There’s still a certain inertia on both sides.”

    Nunn and others see that inertia in the Bush administration’s refusal to consider the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and its request – since defeated in the Senate – for some $500 million for research on a so-called “bunker buster” nuclear weapon and low-yield “mini-nukes.”

    Russia, too, has some Cold War inertia to overcome. Putin proudly announced last month that Russia was testing “the newest nuclear missile systems … that other nuclear states do not have.” He offered no further details about the weapons.

    A number of political analysts believe Putin’s comments – which were unprepared remarks made to a group of senior commanders at the Ministry of Defense – were intended to boost military morale and for domestic political consumption.

    “I’m sure it was nothing surprising to the U.S.,” said Kobyakov, noting that the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty obliges each side to provide technical data on any new nuclear weapons.

    Kobyakov and others believe Putin was probably referring to the Topol-M missile, which has long been in the Russian pipeline, and a sea-launched missile that’s being developed. There are rumors in military circles in Moscow that the new missile could be maneuvered in flight, unlike current ballistic missiles, to foil the Bush administration’s planned national missile defense system. One senior Russian general cryptically called it “a hypersonic flying vehicle.” Government officials in both countries are keen to point out that they’ve stopped targeting each other with their nuclear missiles, although experts say this “de-targeting” is political hokum.

    The old targeting data and missile trajectories are stored in command computers, Kobyakov said. And missiles can be re-targeted in a matter of seconds: A couple of mouse clicks on a computer would put Washington, Miami or Moscow back in the nuclear crosshairs.

    But it’s the danger of accidental or maverick launches that most concerns atomic experts. That danger is heightened, in part, by the decrepit state of Russian defenses.

    “The Russian Early Warning System is essentially useless,” said Theodore Postol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an expert on early warning issues and technology.

    Holes in Russia’s satellite and radar networks, Postol said, mean U.S. submarines in the North Atlantic can strike Moscow with a two- or three-minute warning for the Russian capital. Launches from the North Pacific could hit the city with no warning at all.

    Postol also said a new Prognoz satellite warning system “may never be in place.”

    Stanislav Petrov, the old bunker commander, the man who saved America back in 1983, nodded his head sadly when told of Postol’s assessment.

    “That’s right, not enough satellites,” he said. “We never had enough.”