We're one 'Oops' away from Armageddon

Out of America: The greatest threat to the US from atomic weapons is accidental detonation. And, worryingly, it has nearly happened.

Let's start with a simple, astounding fact. In the 68 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, apart from scheduled nuclear tests, not a single nuclear warhead has exploded. The remarkable thing is not that nuclear weapons have never featured in a hot war. Basic human sanity – awareness of the devastation that would be caused by today's far more powerful devices – has ensured that. What is truly astonishing is that since 1945, no nuclear weapon has gone off by accident.

Today the topic, here in the United States or among the original nuclear powers, seems almost irrelevant. We take atomic weapons for granted. Not so perhaps in the Middle East, or in the Indian subcontinent, or North Korea. But we British, Americans, Russians, French, and Chinese have virtually forgotten about them, certain they will never be used in anger.

Not that they no longer exist. The US, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation here in Washington, currently has around 4,650 strategic missiles, 1,950 of which are deployed, the rest on stand-by. No figures are published, but upkeep, support and modernisation of the nuclear force reputedly costs at least $50bn (£31bn) a year.

Drive across the plains of North Dakota, Wyoming or Montana, and you might notice the odd small gravelled area by the road, with some gadgets protruding from the earth, protected by barbed wire and ferocious "Keep Off" signs. You might think it is an electricity sub-station. In fact you are passing one of 450 concrete silos on the northern plains that contain a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with a single warhead, each capable of obliterating Hiroshima 27 times over.

That however is as physically close as ordinary punters will ever come to America's nuclear deterrent. The rest is aboard bombers within the sealed perimeters of vast air force bases, or hidden beneath the ocean on 14 Trident submarines – out of sight, and entirely out of mind.

But it was not always thus. If you want an idea of what might have been, read Eric Schlosser's enthralling Command and Control, that weaves together the post-1945 history of the US deterrent with a frame-by-frame recreation of the country's most celebrated brush with accidental Armageddon.

It happened back on 18 September 1980 at a missile silo in rural Arkansas. The silo contained a Titan II fitted with a W-53 warhead, the most potent in the US arsenal, with a 9-megaton yield, 600 times more than Hiroshima.

A worker doing routine maintenance dropped a spanner that fell into the silo and ruptured the missile's fuel tank. Fumes swiftly built up in the confined space. Nine hours later the Titan II blew up, utterly destroying the silo and sending its 740-ton launch closure door spinning into the night sky and depositing the warhead 50 yards away. The safety devices held and it didn't go off, but one person was killed and 29 injured. Local residents had been evacuated – but much difference that would have made, had the worst occurred.

In his researches, however, Schlosser unearthed a yet more terrifying nuclear near miss, 19 years earlier. In January 1961, a B-52 carrying two hydrogen bombs broke up in midair over North Carolina. The bombs came to earth amid the wreckage, and on one of them three out of four automatic arming mechanisms had gone ahead. Only a last safety switch held, preventing a calamity that would have wiped out or rendered uninhabitable much of the East Coast. In comparison, the Cuban missile crisis was a virtual non-event.

And this was just one of at least 700 significant "incidents" between 1950 and 1968 in the US. You wonder how many others went unreported. Imagine, too, the brushes with disaster there must have been in the Soviet Union during the period. But as far as we know, none ever produced an accidental, full-scale nuclear detonation.

Since then, thanks to diminishing stockpiles and improved safety procedures, such "incidents" have been far fewer. But never rule out the human factor. Somehow, for example, in contravention of rules set in place after North Carolina, six cruise missiles fitted with live nuclear warheads were carried on a flight in 2007 from North Dakota to Louisiana without authorisation. Apparently, loaders confused dummy warheads with the real thing.

And even in these past couple of weeks, human frailties have made one wonder. In one bizarre episode, the three-star admiral who was the second ranking officer at US Strategic Command, whose brief includes the country's nuclear strike forces, was removed from duty after being caught using counterfeit poker chips at a casino at Council Bluffs, Iowa just across the river from Strategic Command's HQ at Offutt Air Force base in Omaha Nebraska.

A few days earlier, Major General Michael Carey was sacked from his command of the 20th Air Force, responsible for those Minuteman III missile silos in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, and their launch centres. Both instances involved "unfortunate personal behaviour", a senior Pentagon official told the Associated Press news agency, stressing however that the country's nuclear deterrent force was "safe, secure and effective".

But new revelations last week make one wonder. Earlier this year, two of the three nuclear wings under the 20th Air Force performed badly in a safety and security inspection, and 17 military personnel were made to undergo retraining. Moreover, on two occasions doors to launch control centres were left unlocked, in breach of regulations, AP reported – on one occasion when an on-site food order was being delivered. Of course the guy from Domino's Pizza can't just wander in off the street and press the button, but even so ….

Such is the surreal banality of America's nuclear weapons today. No wonder morale is said to be poor at the ICBM sites, in the rearmost line of battle, of a war that will never be fought. Back in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, the greatest nuclear threat to America was accidental detonation of an American weapon. That remains the case now. Let's hope the dumb luck holds. More

 

 

U.S. Dominance in Drone Technology

Stratfor Military Analyst Paul Floyd examines drone proliferation around the globe and explains the technology's constraints and potential.
For more analysis, visit: http://www.Stratfor.com

How Much Is Enough - Michael Krepon

How much is enough? Every state possessing nuclear weapons has difficulty answering this question. It’s natural to think that more weapons will result in more security because nuclear weapons are so fearsome and because it’s hard to know what hand the competition is holding.

If the competition responds in kind, feelings of insecurity usually grow. Refusal to compete can also result in greater insecurity. Improved relations and nuclear risk-reduction agreements, tacit or otherwise, can provide a way out of this dilemma.

The guardians of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal have achieved many successes, despite the efforts of the United States and export control regimes to prevent them. With an economy one-ninth the size of India, outside observers now believe that Pakistan is ahead of India in some nuclear weapon-related capabilities, including the size of its stockpile. India is not, however, standing still. It, too, is increasing the size of its stockpile and flight-testing more advanced missiles. If New Delhi decides to pick up the pace of this competition, Pakistan will feel less secure as an unwanted arms race picks up steam.

Even if India chooses not to pick up the pace, Pakistan will become more insecure unless its economy and social cohesion improve. Nuclear weapons can help severe crises from becoming wars, and some kinds of added nuclear capabilities can strengthen deterrence. But nuclear weapons cannot fix domestic ills, and if deterrence fails, the significant costs of acquiring nuclear weapons will become a mere down-payment to the extreme costs associated with their use.

The United States and the Soviet Union remain object lessons of how success can breed competition and insecurity. Both superpowers were guilty of wretched nuclear excess because their competition was always measured in relative, rather than absolute terms. An adversary’s gains were always bad news, no matter how many weapons the home team possessed. The successful acquisition of “second strike” capabilities – the ability to withstand a surprise attack and respond with devastating effect -- never did relieve Cold War anxieties because the competition never waned, even at very high numbers. This twisted superpower dynamic only subsided when the Soviet Union failed because its economy couldn’t sustain the competition.

Three states with mid-sized nuclear arsenals – Great Britain, France and Israel – managed to avoid this dynamic because they didn’t have a nuclear-armed adversary in their approximate weight class, and because all three could rely on Washington as a back-up.

One key decision point for all states with nuclear weapons is whether to seek the means to deliver them at short, as well as longer ranges. Mobile missiles with longer ranges are easier for the home team to control in a crisis and harder for an adversary to target. Short-range capabilities are the hardest to control because, in order to have maximum deterrent effect, they need to be positioned close to where battle lines might be drawn. These lines can change and can be breached quickly, especially with the use of air power.

The United States and the Soviet Union were never able to figure out how to secure short-range nuclear capabilities and to maintain command and control over them in the fog of war. Nonetheless, the superpowers handed thousands of battlefield nuclear weapons to soldiers who would become victims of fallout from friendly as well as enemy fire. The Soviet Union planned to carry out a ground offensive across Europe with tactical nuclear weapons, while the United States planned to stop tank offensives with them. With the benefit of hindsight, these plans now appear to have been pure folly.

Huge Cold War arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons have shrunk considerably, but many still reside in Russian and U.S. stockpiles. Success that leads to excess eventually results in reductions -- long after it becomes clear that the risks associated with tactical nuclear weapons far exceed their military utility.

Pakistan and India won’t compete as foolishly as the United States and the Soviet Union, but they are still entering uncharted territory. This territory is even harder to map because Chinese strategic capabilities figure into New Delhi’s nuclear requirements, and because all three countries maintain secrecy over their holdings. A triangular competition makes it even harder to determine how much is enough.

As the conventional military balance tilts in India’s favor, Pakistan has signaled a requirement for short-range nuclear capabilities to strengthen deterrence against the threat of Indian retaliation after dramatic attacks by violent extremists based in Pakistan. New Delhi might also seek short-range nuclear capabilities, if it decides not to rely on longer-range missiles and airpower. Other new aspects of the competition are emerging with cruise missiles and sea-based nuclear capabilities. The question, “How much is enough?” is being answered in ways that Pakistan and India are unlikely to find reassuring. More

 

Understanding the Arms "Race" in South Asia

The apparently rapid pace of nuclear developments in India and Pakistan has led many analysts to warn of an impending arms race between the two countries. India and Pakistan are indeed entangled in a long-standing security competition. However, they are not two closely matched opponents engaged in a competitive tit-for-tat cycle of nuclear weapons development in which one state makes advancements to its nuclear capability and the other reacts in kind.

An analysis of aggregated missile test data since 1998 reveals that the armament dynamic is far more complex. The Indian and Pakistani nuclear programs are largely decoupled. The data show little correlation between the adversaries’ testing behavior contrary to what would be expected in a classic arms race. In fact, the types and ranges of missiles under development provide concrete evidence of the divergence in their nuclear objectives and security strategies.

India and Pakistan are indeed racing toward their respective national security objectives, but they are running on different tracks and chasing vastly different goals. Pakistan is building weapons systems to deter India from conventional military operations below the nuclear threshold. India is developing systems primarily to strengthen its strategic deterrent against China, meaning this dynamic is not confined to the subcontinent. Government policies that aim to change the trajectory of the South Asian security competition need to take these complexities into account.

The South Asian Security Dynamic

In its third missile test of the year, India conducted the first test launch of its new Agni V ballistic missile on April 19. Six days later, Pakistan tested the Shaheen IA, also a ballistic missile, one of six missile tests undertaken by Islamabad in 2012. This recent spate of nuclear-capable missile tests in South Asia has revived long-standing concerns that India and Pakistan are entangled in a nuclear arms race.

These concerns might be passed off as Western media hype, if not for the serious scholars and practitioners voicing them. Recently, for instance, retired Indian Navy Admiral Arun Prakash argued that “India and Pakistan are edging dangerously close to a spiral in the growth of their nuclear weapons arsenals. This could become a mindless race, driven by mutual suspicion, rather than the actual needs of deterrence and stability.”1 Similarly, Hudson Institute defense analyst Richard Weitz argued that the most dangerous aspect of security in South Asia “is almost certainly the nuclear arms racing between [India and Pakistan].”2

In recent years, both states have indeed tested a broad spectrum of ballistic and cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, including short-range, tactical systems. But is this frequent testing and development of similar types and ranges of missiles really indicative of an arms race or is there another dynamic at play? More

 

Drowning Stability: The Perils of Naval Nuclearization and Brinkmanship in the Indian Ocean

In May 1998, the sun-scorched deserts of the Indian state of Rajasthan shook with a succession of nuclear explosions. Barely two weeks later, in a seemingly tit-for-tat response, Pakistan conducted its own series of detonations, in the remote western hills of Baluchistan.

Both nations’ previously concealed nuclear capabilities had suddenly burst out into the open, giving a new and terrifying form to the enduring rivalry that had convulsed the subcontinent for decades. Caught off guard, the international community reacted with indignation and dismay. Concerns over nuclear escalation in the event of another Indo-Pakistani conflict refocused Washington’s attention on South Asia and triggered the longest sustained level of bilateral Indo-American engagement in history. This had the unexpected benefit of enabling both democracies finally to find common ground, after many years of acrimony, chronic mistrust, and squandered opportunities. Fears of mass terrorism in the wake of 9/11 and subsequent revelations of extensive proliferation emanating from Pakistan added urgency to Western desires to preserve a modicum of crisis stability in South Asia, as well as to prevent any form of escalatory behavior that could spiral into nuclear conflict or further the spread of radioactive material.

More than ten years later, however, the international community’s sense of urgency seems to have waned, and the evolution of the nuclear postures and arsenals of both New Delhi and Islamabad no longer appear to evoke the same degree of concern, or even interest.

Symptomatic of this ebbing attention is the detached, disinvested manner in which much of the world has witnessed the ongoing shift of South Asian nuclear capabilities from land to sea.

When in July 2009 India launched its first nuclear submarine, S-2 (also known as the Advanced Technology Vessel, or ATV, and ultimately named Arihant), in a dry dock in the eastern port of Visakhapatnam, the reaction of much of the world to the event was remarkably subdued. The event was perfunctorily acknowledged abroad, and in India as well, as a technological and symbolic milestone in the nation’s rise to great-power status. Barring Pakistan, which reacted immediately and sharply to the news, scant commentary—scholarly or journalistic—was made about the impact that the introduction of sea-based delivery systems would have on the South Asian nuclear equation.

This article seeks to address this issue directly, asserting that it is only a matter of time before Pakistan formally brings nuclear weapons into its own fleet. The study first examines the key causes and motivations behind both nations’ lurches toward naval nuclearization. For both nations, a variety of factors explain the pursuit of sea-based deterrence. In particular, China’s nuclear role in the Indian Ocean is examined, both as a key enabler of Pakistani naval nuclearization and as a potential future military actor in the Arabian Sea. The second section charts the dangerous path that Indian and Pakistani navies appear to be taking, a path that combines dual-use systems (most notably nuclear-tipped cruise missiles), cultivated doctrinal ambiguity, and brinkmanship to render the future of nuclear stability in South Asia exceptionally bleak. It is argued that if this haphazard naval nuclearization remains unchecked, its destabilizing effect will spill over into the Persian Gulf and beyond. Without a concerted effort to integrate sea-based nuclear assets more effectively into both nations’ strategic thinking and into a bilateral dialogue, New Delhi and Islamabad may be unable to avoid escalation in a crisis and, ultimately, skirt nuclear disaster. More

 

Pakistan’s 21st Century Naval Modernisation Programme – Indian nuclear submarine programme

In spite of progress being made to enhance bilateral ties, geopoltical rivalry between Pakistan and India continues to escalate. The most recent example was demonstrated by the launch of India’s Agni-5 nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile, which was closely followed by the launch Pakistan’s Hatf-4 Shaheen-1A nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile. While this strategic rivalry has been notable on land, escalation in the maritime domain has made Pakistan increasing concerned at India’s unprecedented plans to modernise its navy.

Comment

India’s naval modernization and expansion programme has continued to raise Pakistan’s suspicions and has contributed to escalating tensions. In 20 February this year, Pakistan Navy Chief Asif Sandila told Defense News, a flagship US-based publication, that: “The strategic dimension of India’s naval buildup is a cause of concern.” He added: “We are mindful of this development and taking necessary measures to restore the strategic balance.”

The sentiment expressed by other Pakistani defence commentators provides another revealing insight into how Pakistan is likely to fashion its future naval strategy. For instance, in 2002 Malik Ayaz Hussain Tiwana stated in the Defence Journal, one of Pakistan’s leading defence publications: “In any future conflict, Pakistan naval forces should be capable of selectively operating on India’s eastern seaboard, threatening its shipping and tying down a portion of the Indian Navy in the east.” He concluded: “Also, Pakistan naval units should be adequately equipped to challenge and break any enemy blockade attempted away from the ranges of our Air Force cover.”

Similarly, in December 2011, Masood-Ur-Rehman Khattak, a Research Fellow at the Islamabad-based South Asian Strategic Stability Institute, wrote in the Eurasia Review: “[The] Indian Navy is developing its overall capabilities at rapid pace. Induction of [an] aircraft carrier, nuclear submarines, network-centric and electronic warfare capabilities, latest radars, weapons and equipment, fast [attack] boats, frigates, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, satellites, UAVs and regular exercises at sea will make [the] Indian Navy a serious threat to Pakistan’s maritime interests in future.” Given that maritime trade constitutes 97 per cent of Pakistan’s total trade, it is evident that Pakistan is fearful that a modern and expanded Indian Navy could pose a greater threat to its sea lines of communications and, in the event of war, impose a naval blockade that would have a crippling effect on the nation’s economy. More

 

Drums of war: The US media's 'Iranian threat'

 

On Listening Post this week: Beating the drum for war - the US media and 'The Iranian Threat'. Plus, the burgeoning media scene in post-revolutionary Libya.

Something sounds familiar. 'Long-range nuclear missiles', 'terrorist sleeper cells', 'WMDs': terms which quickly became part of the media's vocabulary in the run up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Fast-forward to 2012 and they are featuring heavily once again, only now it is not about Iraq, but Iran. Last time, the media's saber-rattling followed the Bush administration's lead in selling the attack on Iraq. This time, the so-called 'Iranian Threat' is a narrative being constructed by the US media all by itself - with scant public support from the Obama administration. Our News Divide this week takes a close look at the coverage of Iran and a culture of journalism that seems to have forgotten the very real dangers of hypothesis and conjecture. More

One would think that paranoia was an infectious disease given the way is spreads in certain countries and among the media. However, given the level of greed in today's world that drives corporate motivation it should surprize no one. On the other hand no sector of the economy should be beating the drums of war. All corporations should be practicing Corporate Social Responsability. Editor.

The new Cold War has already started – in Syria - Robert Fisk

If Iran obtains nuclear weapons capability, "I think other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons".

Thus thundered our beloved Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in one of the silliest pronouncements he has ever made. Hague seems to spend much of his time impersonating himself, so I'm not really certain which of Mr Hague-Hague's personas made this statement.

Flaw number one, of course, is Hague-Hague's failure to point out that there already is another Middle East "nation" that has, in fact, several hundred nuclear weapons along with the missiles to fire them. It's called Israel. But blow me down, Hague-Hague didn't mention the fact. Didn't he know? Of course, he did. What he was trying to say, you see, was that if Iran persisted in producing a nuclear weapon, Arab states – Muslim states – would want to acquire one. And that would never do. The idea, of course, that Iran might be pursuing nuclear weapons because Israel already possesses them, did not occur to him.

Now as a nation that sells billions of pounds worth of military hardware to Gulf Arab nations – on the basis that they can then defend themselves from Iran's non-existent plans to invade them – Britain is really not in a position to warn anyone of arms proliferation in the region. I've been to the Gulf arms fairs where the Brits show alarming films of an "enemy" nation threatening the Arabs – Iran, of course – and the need for these Arab chappies to buy even more kit from British Aerospace and the rest of our merchants of death. More

 

Is the World Really Safer Without the Soviet Union? By Mikhail Gorbachev

 January 29, 2012 “The Nation” — Since the breakup of the Soviet Union twenty years ago, Western commentators have often celebrated it as though what disappeared from the world arena in December 1991 was the old Soviet Union, the USSR of Stalin and Brezhnev, rather than the reforming Soviet Union of perestroika. 

Moreover, discussion of its consequences has focused mostly on developments inside Russia. Equally important, however, have been the consequences for international relations, in particular lost alternatives for a truly new world order opened up by the end of the cold war.   

 

Following my election as general secretary of the Communist Party in March 1985, the Soviet leadership formulated a new foreign policy agenda. One of the key ideas of our reforms, or perestroika, was new political thinking, based on the recognition of the world’s interconnectedness and interdependence. The top priority was to avert the threat of nuclear war. Our immediate international goals included ending the nuclear arms race, reducing conventional armed forces, settling numerous regional conflicts involving the Soviet Union and the United States, and replacing the division of the European continent into hostile camps with what I called a common European home. More