GROWING THREAT OF NUCLEAR WAR
The cold war ended six years ago, and President Clinton has said,
"In this new world, our children are growing up free from the
shadows of the cold war and the threat of nuclear holocaust."[1]
Unfortunately, the President is not telling the truth. The
threat of nuclear war continues to worsen, according to recent
reports in credible journals.
A special report published in the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
April 30, 1998, assesses the danger of an accidental launch of
nuclear weapons from Russia.[2] According to the report, an
estimated 6.8 million Americans would be killed instantly in such
an accident, with millions more exposed to lethal doses of
radiation. And the likelihood of such an accident is increasing,
not diminishing, as time passes, the report concludes.
Both Russia and the United States --though no longer enemies
--have thousands of nuclear warheads ready to fire on a few
minutes' notice. Specifically, the Russians have roughly 2500
nuclear warheads poised to launch at all times. The U.S. has an
even larger number.
In 1994, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed to stop aiming
strategic nuclear missiles at each others' countries --and this
provides the basis for President Clinton's misleading assurances
that our children are growing up free from the threat of nuclear
holocaust. But the geographic coordinates of the original
military targets --many of which are cities --remain in the
memory banks of all these weapons, so the nuclear warheads can be
re-targeted at U.S. and Russian cities within seconds.
Russia's ballistic missiles are reported to be more dangerous
than ours. Russia has programmed its missiles so that, if they
fire accidentally without a target programmed into memory, they
will automatically aim themselves at their cold war military
targets, which could be a missile silo in Montana, or the
Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, neither U.S. nor
Russian missiles can be commanded to self-destruct after they are
launched.[3]
The old Soviet Union and the U.S. developed elaborate systems to
keep nuclear weapons under centralized control. However, now the
situation has changed significantly in Russia, and recent U.S.
military policies are making things worse.
Both the U.S. and Russia employ a strategy called "launch on
warning." This means that each country will launch a
counter-attack as soon as it decides that an attack has been
launched against it. The idea is to launch quickly so that the
counter-attack missiles will be safely off the ground before the
incoming missiles rain down. That way, the promise of a swift
counter-attack can serve as a credible deterrent to a first
strike. Launch on warning leaves precious little time for
thoughtful deliberations. Each country has submarine-based
nuclear missiles within 15 minutes' striking distance of the
other. Thus the country perceiving an attack will have several
minutes to verify that an attack is occurring, several minutes
for top-level decision-making, and a couple of minutes to
disseminate the authorization to launch a counterstrike. Then
it's over.
Mistakes are inevitable. On January 25, 1995, Russian radar
operators observed an ominous blip on their screens.[4] It was a
rocket rising into the sky somewhere off the coast of Norway.
Such a rocket could conceivably deliver 8 nuclear bombs to Moscow
within 15 minutes, so word went out immediately throughout the
Russian military command.
As the various stages of the rocket separated from each other,
the radar blips made it seem as if an attack by several missiles
might be under way. President Boris Yeltsin activated his
"nuclear briefcase," the portable computer station which would
allow him to launch a full counterstrike.
After 8 minutes --with less that 4 minutes remaining before a
counter attack would be launched under Russian launch-on-warning
protocols --top Russian officials concluded that the trajectory
of the rocket was taking it out to sea, where it would pose no
threat to Russia. The crisis passed.
The rocket turned out to be a U.S. scientific probe intended to
explore the upper atmosphere, to improve human knowledge of the
northern lights. The Norwegians had informed Russian authorities
of the planned launch weeks before, but the message had not made
its way through the Russian bureaucracy to those who needed to
know.
The system worked that night in early 1995 and catastrophe was
averted. However, several nuclear weapons specialists, writing in
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, recently concluded that "the systems built
to control Russian nuclear weapons are now crumbling."[3,pg.76]
Here is some of the evidence they presented:
- In Russia, local electric companies have repeatedly shut off
the power to various nuclear weapons installations after the
military authorities failed to pay their electric bills.
- Equipment that controls nuclear weapons frequently
malfunctions, and critical electronic devices and computers
sometimes switch to combat mode for no apparent reason.
- On seven occasions during the fall of 1996 operations at
several nuclear weapons centers were severely disrupted when
thieves tried to steal critical communications cables to retrieve
the valuable copper they contained.
An assessment of Russian nuclear controls, written by the U.S.
CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and leaked to the WASHINGTON
TIMES reached basically the same conclusion.[5] The CIA wrote,
"The Russian nuclear command and control system is being
subjected to stresses it was not designed to withstand as a
result of wrenching social changes, economic hardship, and
malaise within the armed forces."
That CIA report warned of "conspiracies within nuclear armed
units" to commit nuclear blackmail. "This has become a concern
as living conditions and morale have deteriorated in the
military, even among elite nuclear submariners, nuclear warhead
handlers, and SRF," the CIA wrote. SRF is the Strategic Rocket
Force --the group that controls Russia's intercontinental
ballistic missiles.
The CIA also warned that the normal chain of command has broken
down in some parts of the Russian military. According to the
CIA, some submarine crews may be able to launch the ballistic
missiles under their control without having to obtain special
codes from their superiors.[3,4]
In February, 1997, the military institute responsible for
designing the complex control systems for Russia's Strategic
Rocket Force staged a one-day strike to protest pay arrears and
the lack of funds to upgrade their equipment. Three days later
Russian defense minister Igor Rodionov said, "If the shortage of
funds persists... Russia may soon approach a threshhold beyond
which its missiles and nuclear systems become uncontrollable."[3]
Two-thirds of Russia's early-warning radars no longer work, and
two satellites (out of 9) are missing from their satellite
surveillance system.[3,6]
Furthermore, about half of Russia's nuclear "early warning" radar
network no longer resides on Russian soil. Some stations are in
Latvia, others in the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.
Disputes over funding and personnel have put the operational
integrity of these systems in doubt.
These systems are the eyes and ears of Russian nuclear defense
analysts, and, as a result, Russia is partially blind and
deaf.[6] This means Russia may have difficulty deciding the
origin of a missile attack --is it a phantom radar blip, a
scientific rocket gone astray, a military missile launched
accidentally, or a serious attack?
The weakest link in the nuclear-weapons control system may be the
humans involved. Here, we know more about the Americans than we
do about the Russians. A 1987 report said that the U.S. had
112,000 people involved in handling U.S. nuclear weapons.[7] The
military is deeply concerned about the psychological stability of
these people, and has developed a Personnel Reliability Program
to select them. However, a large number of people who have gone
through the Personnel Reliability Program screening have later
been "decertified", which means removed from their positions.
Individuals are decertified if they are found guilty of
negligence, serious civil infractions, repeated alcohol or drug
abuse, or other aberrant behavior that might lead to unreliable
performance. According to Department of Defense figures from
1975 to 1984 some 51,000 individuals were decertified, an average
of more than 5000 each year. Among these, the majority were
decertified for drug and alcohol abuse or for psychiatric
problems. Therefore at any given time, thousands of potentially
unstable individuals have day-to-day responsibility for handling
nuclear weapons.
A 1981 survey of U.S. personnel at military installations in
Italy and West Germany found that drugs were used ON DUTY by 43%
of army personnel, 17% of air force personnel, 35% of marines,
and 49% of navy personnel. Defense Department officials
testified before Congress in 1982 that an estimated 28% of army
personnel and 21% of navy personnel drank alcohol while on duty.
The highest prevalence of drinking was reported among senior
officers.[7]
Russia has similar problems, but worse. About 45,000 Soviets
died from acute alcohol poisoning in 1976 --100 times the number
who died of that cause in the U.S. that year. Between the
mid-1960s and the mid-1980s per-capita alcohol consumption
doubled in the Soviet Union. Alcohol abuse is reported to be
more prevalent in the Russian military than among civilians.
According to one estimate, 1/3 of Russian military personnel are
alcohol-dependent, with heavy drinking especially prevalent among
officers.[7]
The Russian army has fallen on hard times. It is a mere shadow
of its former self. To try to maintain its status as a world
power, Russia is relying more and more on nuclear weapons.
Indeed, Russia recently renounced its former policy of "no first
strike" with nuclear arms.
Recent U.S. military policies are making things worse. As Russia
grows weaker, some of its hard-liners (the Russian equivalents of
Jesse Helms) grow more paranoid about its neighbors and former
enemies in the west. To some Russians, the proposed expansion of
NATO to include Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the
Baltic states does not necessarily seem benign.
The U.S. is continuing to try to build a scaled-down "star wars"
missile defense system --in technical violation of the
Antiballistic Missile Treaty --which does not necessarily look
benign to everyone in Russia.[6,8]
No, current U.S. policies --which are probably primarily intended
as political sops to the military corporations --do not seem
likely to reduce the chances of inadvertent or accidental nuclear
war. On the contrary, they seem almost certain to make the world
less stable and more dangerous.
--Peter Montague
(National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO) |
