Silencing the Bomb Read online

  In this final chapter I take a broad look at a number of issues related to the control of nuclear arms that extend beyond nuclear testing. I examine the consequences of a major nuclear exchange, the concept of nuclear winter, attempts to limit nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, the possibility of eventually eliminating all nuclear weapons, and the role of scientists in reducing the likelihood of a nuclear exchange. My list is only partial.

  DANGERS OF HAIR-TRIGGER ALERTS AND UNAUTHORIZED LAUNCHES OF DELIVERY SYSTEMS FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  Nearly everyone agrees that a major exchange of nuclear weapons would be a great disaster of unprecedented dimensions and horrors. Nevertheless, preventing such an exchange involves considerable disagreement. I am of the school that thinks that the use of even a few nuclear weapons would be a major catastrophe, and that nuclear weapons have only one use—deterring others from using them. Some people in the United States, however, believe that nuclear weapons could be used to destroy chemical and biological weapons, destroy deep bunkers for nuclear arms, attack terrorists, or conduct a limited war.

  It is a mistake to think that chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons —sometimes collectively called weapons of mass destruction—are of equal lethality. While deadly, scenarios that involve chemical and biological weapons are nearly always much less destructive than those involving nuclear weapons.

  A decision by the Russian Republic to attack the United States with hundreds to a thousand nuclear weapons—a so-called “bolt out the blue”—has not been considered a likely scenario since the end of the Cold War in 1991. The greater danger today is that many nuclear weapons are on hair-trigger alert and might be used in a rapid response (fire on warning) in response either to a false alarm (believing one is under attack) or to an unauthorized launch of one or more delivery vehicles. Just the firing of one missile with multiple warheads by one country against the other—such as either the Russian SS-18 or the U.S. Trident II—could destroy four to eight major cities. The threat of computer hacking is now an additional concern.

  Russian land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) can reach the United States in as little as twenty-five minutes, submarine-launched missiles in as little as ten minutes. Once the United States detected their launch, even less time would remain before impact. This would allow high-level officials only five to ten minutes to deliberate whether they should launch U.S. strategic forces against Russia before command and control systems and land-based missiles sustained damage. About two minutes would be needed to transmit launch orders, three minutes for firing those missiles, and a few more minutes for them to fly a safe distance from their home bases.

  A strong rationale exists for either the United States or Russia to fire on warning, launching a retaliatory strike while enemy nuclear missiles presumably are still en route and before detonations occur, to avoid loss of land-based missiles, bombers, and command and control facilities. Nevertheless, fire on warning is a particularly dangerous practice because it could well occur in response to a false alarm. This is particularly true for land-based missiles with multiple warheads because one or two incoming warheads could destroy a single missile with up to ten warheads. Russia has a larger percentage of its long-range warheads on land-based missiles, many of which contain multiple warheads (MIRVs), while the United States has more of its strategic warheads on submarines. These U.S. assets deployed well at sea are not vulnerable to a sudden attack, but their land-based command and control facilities are.

  The United States also has the better early warning systems. Russia, therefore, is more likely to fire on warning in response to a false alarm that is not identified as such in the ten minutes or so required to launch its larger land-based assets. Russia may believe it has even less warning time because it fears the use of missiles launched from U.S. Trident submarines in the northeast Atlantic Ocean off Norway. Once a few nuclear weapons are fired, an orgy in which many more weapons are set off seems highly likely. Missiles, unlike bombers, cannot be recalled or redirected to another site once they are launched.

  NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS AND FALSE ALARMS

  I have compiled from a variety of sources a list of accidents involving nuclear weapons and false alarms of impending nuclear attack that have occurred during the past sixty-five years. Soviet accidents have likely been underreported.

  1. Northern British Columbia, February 13, 1950: A U.S. B-36B bomber crashed after jettisoning a nuclear bomb, the first known loss of a nuclear weapon. It did not cause a nuclear explosion.

  2. Goldsboro, North Carolina, January 23, 1961: Two U.S. hydrogen bombs were accidently dropped when the B-52 carrying them broke up in midair. Three safety mechanisms on one bomb failed; the fourth and final mechanism worked and prevented explosions of several megatons.

  3. Palomares, Spain, January 17, 1966: A U.S. B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs collided with a tanker during aerial refueling. Three of those weapons were found on land. The nonnuclear explosives in two of them detonated upon impact with the ground, resulting in radioactive contamination of a 0.78 square mile (2 sq km) area. This is an example of weapons’ being “one-point safe” in that strong blows to the chemical explosives did not detonate one or more nuclear explosions. The fourth weapon fell into the Mediterranean Sea, where it was recovered intact after a two-and-a-half-month search.

  4. Thule, Greenland, January 21, 1968: A B-52 crashed onto sea ice after a cabin fire. Four hydrogen bombs ruptured and dispersed widespread radioactive contamination. No nuclear explosions occurred.

  5. Use of a wrong tape, November 9, 1979: Computers of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) indicated a full-scale, preemptive Soviet attack against the United States. U.S. military officers feared the worst for six minutes before recognizing it as a false alarm. A NORAD technician had mistakenly loaded a simulation into the system without identifying it as such.

  6. Damascus, Arkansas, September 1980: A nonnuclear explosion occurred in a Titan II missile silo when an airman dropped a socket from a wrench that pierced the skin of the missile. The warhead landed about 100 feet (30 m) from the entry gate of the launch complex. No radioactive material was dispersed, and a nuclear explosion did not occur.

  7. A Soviet error, September 26, 1983: The Soviet early warning system mistook bright flashes to mean that the United States had launched five nuclear missiles at the USSR. Disobeying orders, a Soviet lieutenant colonel in charge decided against informing his superiors. He reasoned correctly that a system malfunction had occurred because the United States would not have launched an attack of just five missiles.

  8. A failed communication, January 25, 1995: A communiqué from the Norwegian government describing the launch of a research rocket to study northern lights never reached the Russian military. For a few minutes, Russian radar operators believed they were under attack by the United States. The alarm reached high levels of the Russian government.

  9. Hacking into U.S. launch orders, 1990s: An in-depth investigation of safeguards found an electronic “backdoor” to the naval communications network used to transmit launch orders to U.S. Trident missile submarines. Whether the network was actually ever hacked into is not known.

  10. Missing U.S. cruise missiles, August 29–30, 2007: Six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads were loaded onto a U.S. Air Force plane, flown across the country, and unloaded. For thirty-six hours, no one knew where the warheads were, or even that they were missing.

  BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE

  Present versions of U.S. defensive missiles, which do not contain nuclear warheads, destroy a target missile by either colliding with it or detonating a chemical explosion close by. It must get very close to its target, which is moving extremely fast, in a very short amount of time. It is like hitting a bullet with a bullet. Defensive missiles are still in the process of being developed and tested. Even though many have already been deployed, many U.S. tests have missed their targets.

  Missile defense is not a new concept. Vari
ous U.S. versions go back to the 1960s, including the nuclear explosion code-named Cannikin of about 4500 kilotons, which was conducted at Amchitka Island in the Aleutians in 1971. It was intended for use with an early missile interceptor, which may have been deployed briefly before Congress defunded it. In 1983 the Reagan administration proposed a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), an ambitious project that would have constructed a space-based antimissile system intended to make nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” This program was dubbed “Star Wars.” One version of SDI involved high-powered lasers on U.S. satellites that could be aimed in specific directions at missiles soon after they were launched. Because the satellites would have been vulnerable to a preemptive attack, the system would have to be fired in a matter of minutes once a real or supposed launch of Russian or other missiles was detected.

  In December 2001 President George W. Bush gave notice to Russia that in six months the United States would withdraw from the bilateral Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. The United States did withdraw and went on to deploy defensive missiles in Alaska and Eastern Europe and on ships in the eastern Mediterranean.

  Advanced long-range missiles carrying nuclear weapons typically involve several stages. They are most vulnerable in the initial stage after launch, when they move relatively slowly from the Earth’s surface through the atmosphere. Nevertheless, once they are detected, little time is available to attack them with anti-ballistic missiles. Now lighter and having burned much fuel, intercontinental and intermediate-range missiles with one or several warheads then travel long distances above the atmosphere through the near vacuum of space. Many decoys or penetration aids can be released from the missile while in space. Lightweight decoys are very difficult to distinguish from warheads in space because neither decoys nor warheads are slowed by atmospheric friction. The warheads finally reenter the atmosphere above their targets, descending very fast. Very little time is available at this point to destroy them.

  A major missile attack by either Russia or the United States likely would involve hundreds of warheads. To be successful, a defensive system must destroy all of them, which seems exceedingly remote. Even if only a small percentage of them were not destroyed and reached their targets, the immense destruction would be a national disaster unprecedented in human history. In fact, the United States has long emphasized that its ballistic missile defense system cannot counter more than a small percentage of Russian intercontinental missiles. To keep the momentum up and to fund current anti-ballistic missile systems, the United States has emphasized that they are intended as a counter against “rogue” countries.

  The emphasis now is on destroying one or a few nuclear missiles launched by either Iran or North Korea against either the United States or its allies. Deploying antimissile systems to do that understandably creates fears in China and Russia for the safety of at least some of their existing missiles. Either of those countries is likely to respond by deploying more intercontinental missiles, making the United States less safe, and both are likely to resist reducing the number of intercontinental missiles further in future arms control agreements.

  A missile launched by either Iran or North Korea that carried a nuclear warhead anywhere near the United States would almost certainly trigger a massive attack by the United States. In my estimation, the United States is much too concerned about a nuclear attack on either it or its allies by either Iran or North Korea. Israel, a strong U.S. ally, can be counted on to defend itself against attacks by Middle Eastern countries. Israel’s nuclear capabilities are large enough to provide sufficient deterrence against Iran’s using nuclear weapons against it. The United States should worry more about North Korea and Iran furnishing either nuclear weapons or know-how to other countries and to terrorists.

  Many nonscientists in the United States do not seem to understand that most arms control experts in the scientific community regard a successful defense system against tens to hundreds of incoming warheads as a pipe dream. This is an instance in which technical considerations really are critical in formulating U.S. national security policy. In 2014 Israel’s “iron dome” shot down roughly half of the crude, short-range rockets that were fired into Israel from Gaza. Success in intercepting some of those rockets should not be confused with the immensely more difficult task of distinguishing many warheads that travel though space along with sophisticated decoys. It is important to note that nuclear weapons can also be delivered clandestinely by means other than ballistic missiles, including by trucks and ships.

  Russia and China have long feared U.S. technological advances. Hence, each of them may well cooperate with the United States in further reducing nuclear weapons and their delivery systems if serious limitations are placed on antimissile systems. This will be a tough pill to swallow for many people in the United States who believe in simplistic arguments that ABM systems can protect us from nuclear attack. Defense contractors and politicians who invoke patriotism continue to argue for new ABM systems. Thus far, for domestic political reasons, no U.S. president, no matter how intelligent, has dared to state that ballistic missile defense is unworkable and hugely expensive and that it diverts funds from many other things of great value to the nation, including other aspects of national security. The United States likely could obtain many important concessions from Russia and China in a “grand bargain” that would either eliminate or seriously restrict ballistic missile defense.

  In 1986 President Reagan rejected limits on missile defense during his summit meeting with Russian general secretary Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland. Reagan could not understand that his vision of a nuclear-free world was not compatible with his excitement for ballistic missile defense. Gorbachev, while interested in warhead reduction, also wanted major limits on defensive missiles. Placing severe limits on missile defense continues to be a major Russian objective.

  As Steven Weinberg, a theoretical physicist at the University of Texas and a Nobel laureate in physics, stated in 2002, “There is nothing more important to American security than to get nuclear forces on both sides down at least to hundreds or even dozens rather than thousands of warheads and especially to get rid of MIRVs, but this is not going to happen if the United States is committed to a national missile defense.”

  ABOLISHING NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  On January 15, 2008, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn coauthored “Toward a Nuclear-Free World” in the Wall Street Journal. Shultz was U.S. secretary of state from 1982 to 1989; Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997; Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977; Nunn formerly chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee and was very involved with nuclear weapons and arms control. The title of their article was surprising because each of them had been moderate to conservative in their political and arms control views.

  They stated, “The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear materials has brought us to a nuclear tipping point. We face the very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands…. With nuclear weapons more widely available, deterrence is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous.” They went on to say, “Without the vision of moving toward zero, we will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward spiral.” They listed many world leaders who supported their views.

  Their call to move toward zero brought out many critics who mentioned old, much-used arguments: nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented; some countries will successfully hide weapons; not all nations will comply. One commenter on the proposal by Shultz and colleagues noted, however, that ending the Cold War was more utopian than the elimination of nuclear weapons and that 95 percent of nations are already nuclear free. Of course, it will take time to move toward zero, but many steps can be taken in the meantime. There is a need for good positive thinking about verifying movements toward zero.

  Shultz and others advocate a series of steps to reduce the nuclear threat. An obvious one is to increase the
decision times for the launch of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to reduce risks of accidental or unauthorized use. They also advocate the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, a stronger nonproliferation regime, and an international system to manage the risks of the nuclear fuel cycle.

  I think Schulz and others were weak on ballistic missile defense (BMD). They said, “Undertake negotiation toward cooperative multilateral ballistic-missile defense and early warning systems. This should include agreements on plans for countering missile threats to Europe, Russia and the United States from the Middle East.”

  They do not mention one measure that I think is very important: a considerable reduction or elimination of missiles with multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). Because each of those missiles carries several weapons, they are more likely to be launched in response to warnings than missiles with single warheads. The understandable fear is that missiles with multiple warheads will be destroyed if they are not used quickly.

  Kissinger remarked decades ago that the United States should have thought through more carefully the development and deployment of MIRVs. They were (and still are) very destabilizing to arms control. One missile with multiple warheads could destroy three to ten missiles of the other superpower.

  I think that Shultz and others should have been stronger about nuclear weapons that are still deployed in Europe. They called only for a dialogue with other NATO countries and Russia about the forward deployment of weapons, a careful accounting of them, and their eventual elimination. Moving to eliminate tactical and other remaining nuclear weapons in Europe, including western Russia, seems to me to be amenable to negotiation. Those weapons are no longer deployed in Belarus, Kazakhstan, or Ukraine—countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

  PROPOSED NEW U.S. DELIVERY SYSTEMS

  The administration of President Barack Obama stunned arms control advocates by embarking on an aggressive effort to upgrade the military’s nuclear weapons programs, including requests to buy twelve new missile-firing submarines, up to a hundred new bombers, and four hundred land-based missiles over the next thirty years. Russia, whose nuclear delivery systems were degraded after the breakup of the Soviet Union, has made recent efforts to reverse that trend under President Vladimir Putin. That reversal, Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, threats to Ukraine, a more aggressive China, and warfare with Muslim extremists have contributed to calls in the United States for increased nuclear capabilities. However, massive rebuilding of U.S. nuclear forces appears to have caused Russia to modernize more of its nuclear arsenal than previously planned in an attempt to keep up with the United States. These contribute to a new Cold War mentality and increase the dangers of nuclear war.