Taking Nuclear Weapons off Hair -Trigger Alert

Medicare Policy for Future Generations — A Search for a Permanent Solution

“…Each country's procedures allow a total response time of only 15 minutes: a few minutes for detecting an enemy attack, another several minutes for top-level decision making, and a couple of minutes to disseminate the authorization to launch a response. 27,28 Possible scenarios of an accidental or otherwise unauthorized nuclear attack range from the launch of a single missile due to a technical malfunction to the launch of a massive salvo due to a false warning. A strictly mechanical or electrical event as the cause of an accidental launch, such as a stray spark during missile maintenance, ranks low on the scale of plausibility.…”

“…It took about eight minutes to conclude that the launch was not part of a surprise nuclear strike by Western submarines -less than four minutes before the deadline for ordering a nuclear response under standard Russian launch-on-warning protocols. 10,24,27 A missile launch activated by false warning is thus possible in both U.S. and Russian arsenals. For the reasons noted above, an accidental Russian launch is currently considered the greater risk.…”

“…Second, the Delta-IV is and will remain the mainstay of the Russian strategic submarine fleet. 27,32,33 Delta-IV submarines carry 16 missiles. Each missile is armed with four 100-kt warheads and has a range of 8300 km, which is sufficient to reach almost any part of the continental United States from typical launch stations in the Barents Sea.…”

“…In the wake of the 1991 attempted coup in Moscow, Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev moved quickly to enhance nuclear safety and stability by taking thousands of strategic weapons off high alert almost overnight. 27 Today, there are specific steps that the United States can take almost immediately, since they require only the authority of a presidential directive. These steps include putting in storage the warheads of the MX missiles, which will be retired under Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) II in any case, and the warheads of the four Trident submarines that will be retired under START III; placing the remaining U.S. ballistic-missile submarines on low alert so that it would take at least 24 hours to prepare them to launch their missiles; disabling all Minuteman III missiles by pinning their safety switches open (as was done with the Minuteman II missiles under President Bush's 1991 directive); and allowing Russia to verify these actions with the on-site inspections allowed under START I.…”

Acoustic-Seismic Detection of Ballistic-Missile Launches for Cooperative Early Warning of Nuclear Attack

“…2 One means of reducing the risk of inadvertent nuclear war is to increase the time for deciding about a possible counter-attack by reducing the alert status of nuclear missiles. 3 There have also been proposals to help Russia improve its early-warning system. 4 A recent, thorough study from the US RAND Corporation has identified three types of scenarios of accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon: (a) unauthorized launch (by a rogue commander or terrorist), (b) launch by mistake (due to a training accident or a system malfunction), and (c) intentional launch based on incorrect information (due to a malfunction of the earlywarning system, the incorrect interpretation of a nonthreatening event, the misperception of a nuclear attack by a third country or terrorists, the misperception of an accidental nuclear detonation on the own territory, or the misinterpretation of a simulated training attack as a real attack).…”