- The Bush administration,s disdain for meaningful arms
control measures even spreads into a lack of concern for securing Russia,s
nuclear materials from sabotage and theft, a crucial component of any honestly
fought "war on terror."
-
- When the U.S.S.R. collapsed, American public interest
in nuclear weapons disappeared under the rubble. People boxed up their
fears and hauled them down to the basements of their souls like some hideous
secret, never to be looked upon again. Thirteen years later, we,re still
willful strangers to thermonuclear dread, carrying on as if the nuclear
stockpiles amassed during the Cold War had all been converted into solar
panels and parakeet swings under Boris Yeltsin,s kindly gaze.
-
- Of course, they weren,t. Most of those warheads are still
live, still scattered under prairies, under seas, on roving flatbed trucks,
ready to launch at a moment,s notice. Right now, thousands of them are
aimed at you, your family and your favorite television and sports personalities.
-
- Against a backdrop of nuclear proliferation, both Russia
and the U.S. continue to maintain and refine their own arsenals. They are
also lowering the thresholds for their use. As Washington pushes forward
with missile defense and a bonus round of NATO expansion, Russian generals
are bristling, while Russia,s command and control system continues to deteriorate,
increasing the chance that misjudgment, error or sabotage could trigger
a missile launch against, say, New York City, which is still targeted for
a couple hundred megatons. According to those analysts who never took their
eyes off the nuclear threat, the danger of a missile exchange between U.S.
and Russia is actually greater today than during the more stable periods
of the Cold War.
-
- Last week, Russia held a wide-ranging exercise simulating
a nuclear war with America. Old Soviet Tu-160 strategic bombers launched
cruise missiles over the North Atlantic and ICBMs were tested over Russia,s
far northern region. Military satellites were launched under simulation
battlefield conditions, and Russia,s beleaguered early warning system was
put through the ringer.
-
- Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of the General
Staff of the Russian military, told reporters in Moscow that the military
exercise reflected Russian concerns over U.S. plans to research and develop
new classes of nuclear weapons, including so-called "bunker busters."
-
- "The [U.S. is] trying to make nuclear weapons an
instrument of solving military tasks [and] lower the threshold of nuclear
weapons use," Baluyevsky said. "Shouldn,t we react to that?"
-
- Days before the exercise, Russian defense minister Sergei
Ivanov had a testy exchange with Senator John McCain at NATO,s annual security
conference in Munich. The two clashed over Moscow,s "meddling"
in the Baltics, Ukraine and the Caucuses. McCain charged neo-imperialism;
Ivanov reiterated Russia,s right to secure its "near abroad."
-
- It is an argument that is just getting started. As the
two nuclear superpowers vie for influence and oil routes, U.S.-Russian
tensions will rise. In a sign of the changing times, nostalgic Cold Warrior
William Safire blurted out in his Feb. 9 syndicated column something that
has rarely been said in polite company since 1989: that the central mission
of NATO is still to "contain the Russian bear."
-
- The clash at the Munich conference was certainly a chilling
moment for those unenthusiastic about another Cold War. But it was far
from the first such moment since the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. In
fact, the entire post-Cold War period could be accurately described as
one long series of huge, underreported chilling moments, during which the
threat of nuclear war has persisted and grown amid public apathy and ignorance.
-
- Call it the dirty little open secret of nuclear planning:
Neither Russia nor the U.S. ever stopped viewing preparation for war against
the other as the central organizing principle of its nuclear policy. February,s
extensive war game wasn,t Russia,s first such drill since the end of the
Cold War, and the U.S. military performs similar drills annually.
-
- Driving the Russian side of U.S.-Russian nuclear politics
is the General Staff. The Russian General Staff is made up of officers
from the various branches of the military, including the Strategic Rocket
Forces. It is the generator and keeper of Russian nuclear policy. These
senior generals, who maintain de facto independent control over the country,s
nuclear weapons, are proud, tough bastards who came of age during the heyday
of Soviet military prestige. It is said that Gorbachev just barely prevented
some of them from launching an invasion of Eastern Europe to prevent the
collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Even now, many remain deeply bitter about
the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., which deprived Russia of the eastern buffer
it acquired in World War II, when the Red Army beat back and crushed the
Nazi Wehrmacht at the cost of 20 million lives.
-
- The memory of Hitler,s June 1941 invasion lives deep
in the General Staff,s collective military mind, fueling a determination
that Russia will never again be taken by surprise. This determination is
today reinforced by Russian weakness and what these generals perceive as
the growing NATO "threat." Faced with economic ruin and the collapse
of the conventional military, they have concentrated attention and resources
on the world,s second-greatest deterrent: Russia,s remaining massive nuclear
arsenal.
-
- American military planners are naturally unnerved by
the continued existence of this arsenal, and lingering mutual suspicions
have led both sides to maintain their nuclear forces on a constant alert,
launch-on-warning footing. This means that American and Russian rocket-mounted
nuclear weapons remain armed, fueled, loaded and kept at hair-trigger readiness
24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
-
-
-
-
- The dangers of keeping nuclear forces on a high-alert,
launch-on-warning footing were real enough during the Cold War, when U.S.
and Russian command and control systems were reliable and followed a strict
line of authority. This is no longer the case. Not only do Russian generals
today have the power to launch Russian missiles independent of their political
masters, Russia,s ability to accurately detect incoming missiles has eroded
badly since the early 90s, adding to Russian insecurity and increasing
the likelihood that confusing radar data could lead to a nuclear launch
order.
-
- The most famous example of this danger occurred on Jan.
25, 1995, when Norway launched a weather research rocket to explore the
Northern Lights phenomenon. When Russia,s radars picked up the missile
trajectory, it seemed to have been fired from a U.S. submarine in the Norwegian
Sealong suspected by the Russians as a likely first move in a U.S. surprise
attack. Russian nuclear forces scrambled into position and bunker commanders
inserted their launch keys, awaiting the order to turn them. Yeltsin, reportedly
fuming drunk at the time, opened his nuclear briefcase and consulted with
the frenzied General Staff. With their nerves screaming, together they
watched the missile trajectory slowly turn away from any conceivable Russian
target. When the crisis finally ended, they had less than two minutes to
make a decision. (U.S. submarine-launched missiles can reach Moscow in
10 minutes.)
-
- The Norwegian government had warned the Russian embassy
in Oslo in advance about the test, but the information never made it to
the Russian General Staff. As described by former CIA analyst Peter Vincent
Pry in his book War Scare, it was "a clerical error" that brought
the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since October 1962.
-
- This is only one of the instances that we know about.
-
- According to Bruce Blair, a former U.S. nuclear launch
commander and current president of the Center for Defense Information in
Washington, blips that could be mistaken for incoming missiles appear on
Russian (and U.S.) radar screens every day. Says Blair: "Everything
from peaceful satellites to space shuttles to wildfires present possibly
confusing information for early warning systems."
-
- Of the technology that makes up Russia,s early warning
system, an estimated 60 percent is past its service life. Most worrisome
of all, Russia,s global radar coveragethink of the "big board"
in Dr. Strangelovehas deteriorated to the point where it is only fully
operational between eight and 16 hours per day, leaving enormous holes
in Russia,s view of what is happening in its air space and over U.S. missile
silos.
-
- During the Norwegian crisis, the knowledge that no ICBMs
had been launched from U.S. silos helped the Russians keep somewhat cool.
Had the Russians been "blind," as they often are, they might
have assumed that they were about to get slammed by a full strike. In another
possible scenario, terrorists detonate a nuclear weapon on Russian soil
during a period of radar blindness. Decision-makers, unable to trace the
blast,s origin, would likely assume it was a hostile missile strike.
-
- Recognizing the gravity of this threat, Bill Clinton
and Boris Yeltsin in 1998 announced plans to build a Joint U.S.-Russia
Data Exchange Center. The project snagged on NATO,s 1999 war in Kosovo,
and today remains held up by the Pentagon,s insistence that its radar data
be filtered through U.S. Strategic Command before going to Moscow. As last
reported by the Washington Post in 2001, the unfinished facility "sits
empty and unrenovated in a leafy residential neighborhood in Moscowserv[ing]
mostly as a clandestine hangout for young beer drinkers."
-
- The failure of the Joint Data Exchange Center has left
experts on both sides shaking their heads. "This initiative is of
the utmost importance," says Valery Yarynich, a retired colonel formerly
with Russia,s Strategic Rocket Forces.
-
- "No serious technical problem [stands in the way]
of coordinating data exchange," he says. "Any level of such cooperation
would be useful in preventing accidental missile launches. The [Joint Data]
initiative is being held up at present only because of mutual distrust
between [the U.S. and Russia] in the nuclear area, in spite of repeated
declarations about friendship, understanding, etc."
-
- A more recent attempt to help Russia shore up its early
warning system, the Russian American Observation Satellite Program (RAMOS),
has also stalled. The plan originally called for the U.S. and Russia to
develop its own observation satellite to be launched into low earth orbit.
Each country would then be responsible for constructing a ground control
station that would receive shared satellite data. After numerous fits and
starts, the project now appears dead, as it,s widely expected to be denied
funding in President Bush,s 2005 budget. Further dimming its prospects,
a U.S.-Russian meeting scheduled to resolve technical legal issues surrounding
RAMOS was abruptly cancelled by the Pentagon earlier this month. Some U.S.
analysts point to the same mistrust mentioned by Yarynich.
-
- "Despite President Bush,s reminders that Russia
is our friend, there is a residual Cold War group still hanging out in
the Pentagon," says G. Wayne Glass of the University of Southern California.
"The Missile Defense Agency in particular is competing with RAMOS
for funding and has a motive for subterfuge. There is enough funding in
the current budget to keep [RAMOS] going, but the [Republican] Senate won,t
fight for anything the White House doesn,t include in [future] budgets.
It is a lost opportunity."
-
- Meanwhile, America,s command and control system has its
own problems. The network connecting U.S. launch centers to its Minuteman
missiles is still in some cases powered by Eisenhower-era computers. Nor
are the U.S. launch systems foolproof. In 1979, a training tape simulating
a Russian surprise attack somehow made its way into the real system at
the U.S. Strategic Air Command inside Cheyenne Mountain. Luckily, the officer
in charge that day suspected the mistake and tracked it down. More recently,
according to Bruce Blair, a classified Pentagon study found a back door
into a military radio network that could be exploited to transmit phony
launch orders.
-
- These are just a few of the lapses and loopholes that
have been reported. As U.S. and Russian officials dither about in distrust,
the risk of launch by accident, sabotage or radar misreads continues to
grow.
-
-
-
-
- The possibility of Russia or the U.S. misinterpreting
a situation has led many experts and planners in both countries to push
for a policy of "launch-after-attack." This means attack orders
would only be given after a nuclear detonation is recorded on the ground
and its launch trajectory confirmed beyond doubt.
-
- Another way to reduce the chance of accidental nuclear
war is "de-alerting." This would entail taking missiles off a
hair-trigger footing and adding steps to the physical launch procedure,
thus lengthening the minimum response time to any attack. The argument
for doing this rests on the assumption that both sides have enough missiles
to absorb a first strike and still guarantee the destruction of the enemy
after the facts are in. This would provide an enormous margin of safety
against starting a war over a suspicious weather balloon, as well as reduce
the risk of accidental or terrorist launch.
-
- But the Pentagon,s declaration of its intent to achieve
decisive U.S. military advantage"full spectrum dominance"over
any conceivable adversary does not encourage the kind of thinking that
leads to de-alerting and other trust-building measures, in Russia or anywhere
else. Quite the opposite. And this is where U.S. policy after the Cold
War enters into the picture.
-
- Russian hypersensitivity about U.S. intentions doesn,t
exist in a vacuum. While the paranoia and bitterness at the highest levels
of the Russian military are partly a result of history and disposition,
U.S. policy can modulate how this paranoia and bitterness translates into
policy.
-
- In 1991, a recently retired member of the General Staff
named General Yuriy Kirshin gave a talk in Washington, DC, in which he
discussed the dilemma of overwhelming U.S. power in the face of Russian
weakness. "The most important thing the U.S. can do to contribute
to world peace," he said, "[is] convince the [Russian] General
Staff that the U.S. does not want to conquer the world."
-
- Since the end of the Cold War, the dialectic has been
clear: Whenever the U.S. flexes its military muscle in breach of international
law, announces hegemonic ambitions or presses for strategic advantage,
Russia (and, increasingly, China) has responded with sharp rhetoric and
a recalibration of its nuclear doctrine. Operation Desert Fox, the bombing
of Belgrade, the expansion of NATO eastward, the declaration of America,s
intent to "own" and weaponize space, the proposed building of
a missile defense system and other high-tech weapons that threaten the
effectiveness of Russia,s nuclear deterrentall are instances in which U.S.
policy after the Cold War has sharpened tensions with Russia and increased
the risk of nuclear war.
-
- (Bill Clinton,s decision to begin the bombing of Yugoslavia
while Russian foreign minister Yevginy Primakov was en route to Washington
for emergency talks is a particularly brazen example. The bombing sent
the General Staff into a frothing rage and seemed to confirm their worst
suspicions. NATO-Russian relations have yet to fully recover from the Kosovo
war.)
-
- And on it goes into the future. The Iraq invasion, President
Bush,s stream of imperial white papers, NATO,s imminent "big bang"
and plans to develop a new generation of bunker-busting "mini-nukes"
have all quickened the pattern in which U.S. policy sweats up the palms
of an already nervous and distrustful Russian General Staff, not to mention
the rest of the world. Cap it off with the recent announcement that the
number of interceptors in the U.S. national missile defense system will
be doubled while a new generation of nuclear weapons is pursued, and one
is forgiven for wondering if anybody at the Pentagon or the White House
has any appreciation of how foreign threat perception can adversely affect
U.S. national security.
-
-
-
-
- Despite the growing risk of accidental launch based on
bad information and jittery launch commanders, there is in this country
no significant public discussion about nuclear policy or the massive arsenals
on both sides of the old Cold War divide. Beneath the silence, the nuclear
bureaucracy within the Department of Energy continues to be lavishly funded,
fueling an inherently innovative system of research and development.
-
- Under the multi-billion-dollar Stockpile Stewardship
Program, the U.S. nuclear arsenal is today being upgraded and expanded,
keeping government scientists and engineers busy designing new generations
and classes of missiles. Plans are being discussed for the weaponization
of space and funding is slated for new plutonium "pit" factories
in several locations, including Los Alamos, where the hearts of future
hydrogen bombs will be constructed. (California senator Dianne Feinstein
is leading the battle to delay the appropriation of funds.)
-
- In short, America,s nuclear weapons program is back to
mid-1980s levels of funding and activity, while public interest is stuck
at mid-1990s levels.
-
- At the same time, a political sea change in nuclear thinking
has been occurring in Washington, where it was once universally accepted
that nuclear weapons were horrible things and that disarmament was a noble,
if distant, goal. This was implicit in our signing of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, which paid lip service to the promise of eventual major power disarmament.
-
- No more. For today,s right wing, there is no such thing
as a bad weaponthere are only bad countries. This thinking is represented
starkly in American threats to use nukes against non-nuclear enemies, as
stated in 2002,s official Nuclear Posture Review.
-
- Even if the current administration can restrain itself
from acting on this new philosophy, such thinking could already be percolating
down through the defense establishment. At a conference last month sponsored
by the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, General Charles Horner of the
U.S. Air Force warned of "a danger of creating a generation in the
military that sees nuclear weapons as an acceptable form of warfare."
-
- That the nuclear firewall is being lowered even before
it is breached is evident in Russia,s evolving nuclear doctrine as well.
The Russians have made it clear that they now reserve the right to use
nuclear weapons even in the face of conventional threats. This is a post-Cold
War development for both countries.
-
- In the realm of bilateral arms control, Bush and Putin
share a common lack of interest. The only treaty on nuclear arms they have
signed so far is the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), a convention
with no verification provisions that does not require the destruction of
a single warhead or weapon. It simply states that by Dec. 31, 2012, neither
side will deploy more than 2200 strategic nuclear warheads. If even five
percent of this number were exchanged, it would mean the total destruction
of both countries.
-
- The Bush administration,s disdain for meaningful arms
control measures even spreads into a lack of concern for securing Russia,s
nuclear materials from sabotage and theft, a crucial component of any honestly
fought "war on terror." The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program,
created to help the countries of the former U.S.S.R. guard and destroy
nuclear materials, is viewed by the White House and the Republican majority
in Congress as just another liberal foreign aid program; its funding was
slashed in the 2003 budget. Former senator Sam Nunn, one of the program,s
creators, is currently out raising his own private funds to implement the
program.
-
- Any Democrat that replaces Bush in 2004 will have his
hands full just rolling back the minute hand on the nuclear clock to where
it stood in 2000. Pushing it back further will be a more difficult project
still, but that doing so is an urgent and front burner task there can be
no doubt. In averting nuclear disaster after the Cold War, we,ve all been
very lucky. But the thing about luck is, it eventually runs out.
-
- Volume 17, Issue 7 ©2004 All rights reserved. http://www.nypress.com/17/7/news&columns/feature.cfm
-
-
- Comment
From Ted Twietmeyer
tedtw@frontiernet.net 2-20-4
-
- Jeff:
-
- In reading the article "Old Nukes Don't Die"
there are some things worth mentioning. First, although the fissionable
core can last decades, the surrounding support system cannot. Listed below
are some of these problem areas.
-
- 1. The plutonium "pit" is always at a temperature
of about 400F. It is surrounded by individual sections of explosive. Explosives
can dry out, or may not even detonate. Since this is the most radioactive
part of the bomb, replacement must be done in a controlled environment
with proper shielding.
-
- 2. Detonation will not take place without perfect timing.
For example, the wires from the capacitor bank switch circuits must ALL
be exactly the same length. Every segment must detonate at the same time.
Detonation requires compression of the pit on every side, with millions
of pounds per square inch in just microseconds. If this doesn't happen
right, the pit will not go super-critical. A small explosion will occur,
but not fission. At worst may result in a dirty bomb.
-
- 3. High value storage capacitors have the problem of
losing capacitance over time. These act like storage batteries, providing
very high current for a very short amount of time. If they cannot hold
a sufficient charge, the explosive segments won't even detonate.
-
- There are many such things required to keep a nuke in
working order. Those that own these devices already would know this. I've
often wondered just how many warheads sitting in silos around the country,
will still work when fired....and just how stable they really are...
-
- I agree with the author that these devices are all over
the planet. But after decades have passed- just what is it that everyone
has ? Buying one of these devices is the ultimate ripoff- you can't tell
if what you spent millions of dollars to buy works, until what you bought
is destroyed !
-
- Ted
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