After Iran, more ways to reduce nuclear risks
Today, most of us don’t think much about nuclear weapons. But we should. Indeed, there are still more than 16,000 nuclear weapons on the planet.
Tuesday saw a historic agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. Thursday marks another milestone in nuclear history — it is the 70th anniversary of the Trinity test, the first-ever atomic bomb explosion, the culmination of our country's Manhattan Project. Less than a month after that test, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and on Nagasaki in Japan, killing tens of thousands and decimating both cities.
Today, most of us don't think much about nuclear weapons. But we really should. Indeed, many readers might be surprised to learn that there are still more than 16,000 nuclear weapons on the planet. Most of them are in either the U.S. or Russian arsenal, and they are five to 40 times more destructive than the bombs dropped on Japan, which had an explosive yield of 15 to 20 kilotons, equivalent to 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT.
If one relatively "small" 150-kiloton nuclear bomb detonated over downtown Philadelphia, conservative models estimate that more than 100,000 people would die instantly or within the first few weeks from severe injuries or acute radiation exposure, an additional half million would suffer serious burns and other injuries, and every residential structure within a two- to three-mile radius would collapse.
And that's the potential impact of just one bomb.
According to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, a "limited" nuclear war between India and Pakistan using only 100 nuclear weapons could immediately kill many millions and so disrupt the global climate and agricultural production that the lives of more than 2 billion people would be in jeopardy. And such a limited nuclear war would likely lead to severe economic disruption around the world.
In other words, nuclear bombs must never be used again.
Yet the United States and Russia are poised to do just that. They each maintain 800 to 900 land- and submarine-based missiles on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched in a matter of minutes. This practice is dangerous since it could lead to an accidental or unauthorized launch, or a mistaken launch in response to a false warning of an incoming attack. Any such launch could have devastating human, environmental, and economic consequences.
Computers and technology fail routinely, and computer system breaches are seemingly everyday occurrences. U.S. nuclear weapons are not immune to these problems. Retired Gen. James Cartwright, former commander of U.S. nuclear forces, has expressed serious concerns about the vulnerability of our nuclear command-and-control systems to cyber intrusions and attack. It is likely that Russian systems are similarly vulnerable.
A related danger is that both countries have a "launch on warning" posture, which gives the president the option of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles before incoming missiles could destroy them. Maintaining this option puts the president under extreme time pressure. For example, if U.S. radars, satellite-based sensors, and command-and-control computer systems indicated that the country were under attack, the U.S. president would have only eight to 12 minutes to determine if the attack were real and whether and how to retaliate. Moreover, the possibility of a false warning is very real. There is a surprisingly long list of U.S. and Soviet/Russian incidents over the past decades when human and technical errors increased the risk of a mistaken nuclear launch.
Maintaining a launch-on-warning posture, which could lead to a mistaken nuclear war, is not only unnecessary, it is absurd. Both countries have hundreds of invulnerable nuclear weapons on submarines that could be used for a retaliatory attack. These weapons are far more than what is needed for deterrence.
Ideally, both the United States and Russia would take their land-based missiles off hair-trigger alert and eliminate their launch-on-warning postures; but the United States should proceed even if Russia does not reciprocate. The possibility of an accidental, unauthorized, or mistaken launch of U.S. nuclear weapons is not zero. And given the potential consequences, the U.S. government should do all it can to reduce or eliminate that risk.
But what about Russia's annexation of Crimea, its meddling in eastern Ukraine, and the Cold War rhetoric of its president, Vladimir Putin? Is now the time to take U.S. ICBMs off hair-trigger alert and eliminate our launch-on-warning posture?
In fact, heightened tensions with Russia could lead to grave miscalculations and make such risk reduction measures even more urgent.
The nuclear agreement with Iran is one step in making the world more secure. Next, the United States needs to take its nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert and eliminate its launch-on-warning posture.
Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund is co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). lgronlund@ucsusa.org
Dr. Matthew Schwartz, who is based in suburban Philadelphia, serves on the national advisory board of UCS (www.ucsusa.org). mattschwartz2@me.com