How PALS Help Secure Nuclear Weapons

Hugh Pickens writes "The BBC reported last week that until 1998 no code or dual key system was required to arm British nuclear weapons. Bombs were armed by inserting a bicycle lock key (video) into the arming switch and turning it 90 degrees. Permissive Action Links (PALs) were introduced in the 1960s in America to prevent a mad General or pilot launching a nuclear war on their own and to control nuclear weapons that were at least partially controlled by other nations but as late as 1974, when an armed quarrel broke out between two members of NATO, Greece and Turkey, the Secretary of Defense learned that many tactical nukes were still not equipped with PALS. It has been reported that PALs have been installed on Pakistan's nuclear weapons to disarm or disable their triggering mechanism if the wrong code is entered or if the bomb is tampered with in any manner."

Comments

Rumor had it...

[b0s0z0ku]

that the PALs on quite a few US tactical nukes at the height of the Cold War were set to 0000 or something similar.

-b.

Re:Rumor had it...

[ais523]

According to Wikipedia, this is actually true, so I don't know why it was modded 'Funny', maybe because it's true and funny; Wikipedia gives http://www.cdi.org/blair/permissive-action-links.cfm as the source. The combination was actually 00000000, but that isn't really much safer. (They apparently changed this rule about 30 years ago, so you can't take advantage of it nowadays.)

A chance to tag something drstrangelove

[antifoidulus]

You still have to wonder if a determined(and clever) mad general still could set off armageddon though(a la Dr. Strangelove)

Bicycle Lock?

[grassy_knoll]

Have to wonder if they restricted pens in the area of the nukes, since it's so easy to pick a bicycle lock with one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hsM88Wx8QQ

Probably not. Wouldn't be sporting to pick the lock and all, so no Brit would ever do that.

Not secure

[jihadist]

How do we secure them from our insane elected "leaders"? If George W decides that Iran really is the antichrist, he may send in some warheads to make them glow like Vegas. Vladimir Putin is currently putting Russia on nuclear alert because George W wants to built an anti-missile shield around Russia. We might as well let the things be secured by bicycle key at this rate!

threats and safeties

[drDugan]

Given that only 1 nation has ever used nuclear weapons in a wartime aggressive attack, most of what is going on with nuclear weapons is about threats, not about usage. "I'll use it if you do ..."

When you're 30-100 times the size of your opponent, having a nice, methodical system of locks and approvals by which you decide and release your forces works fine. You can spare the bombs when you have 3000 and you spend 600 Billion a year on the military.

When you're the little guy with a nuke or two, or like Pakistan with 8 tests, nuclear since 1998, and maybe 30-50 weapons - you need to have the threat that you'll use them very real. You need the idea that some mad general might fly off and send the nukes off a-bombing for the threat of using them to remain credible.

nukes in Turkey?

[haaz]

I thought the U.S. missiles in Turkey were removed as part of negotiation that ended the Cuban-Turkish Missile Crisis. I believe that was one of the terms Robert Kennedy worked out with the Soviets: we'll withdraw our missiles from your backyard if you'll withdraw your missiles from our backyard.

Also, rumor has it the Soviet submarine K129 was hijacked by elite troops, and tried to launch a missile at Pearl Harbor. If this happened, and the sub did try to launch a missle, the missile's safety mechanisms caused it to self-destruct, taking the sub down to the bottom of the sea. There's a lot of rumor and conspiracy theory about it, but Project Jennifer seems to have been about recovering the sunken Soviet sub.

Re:Sigh of relief

[plsuh]

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" -- "who watches the watchers?" In this context, "who holds the codes for the PALs?"

The US has shared information on how to add PALs to a nuclear weapon to just about anyone who has a declared or undeclared nuclear weapon capability. It's in everyone's best interest that nuclear weapons be kept under solid negative control, to make the "mad general" or "stolen weapon" scenarios a little bit less scary. It does not mean that the US or any other nation holds the PAL codes to Pakistan's nuclear weapons; and I can certainly see why any Pakistani government would object to someone else holding the codes.

The big problem is that there are large segments of the Pakistani military (particularly the Interservice Military Intelligence branch, according to reports) that are sympathetic to the radical Islamic factions and might hand over the PAL codes along with a weapon. Another "what if" is the scenario where a radical Islamic government comes to power that wants to provide a nuclear weapon to al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban as a matter of policy. If this is a legitimate government with support from the military then they will have access to the PAL codes. Under the geopolitical circumstances (particularly the tensions with India over Jammu and Kashmir), I would think that a Pakistani general would want the country's political leadership to be able to authorize release of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to India, regardless of whether or not the general was a supporter of radical Islam.

Even if a general or group of generals managed to lose all of the current PAL codes, a legitimate government would be able to reconsitute the PALs with new codes in a matter of weeks to months. Under that scenario, the government might even decide to reconstitute the weapons without PALs to prevent a like-minded group of generals from cutting them off again. To my mind, this would be an even worse outcome.

Unfortunately, to an outsider such as myself (and likely most of the rest of the world) the internal workings of Pakistan's political and military structure are opaque and Byzantine. I certainly don't claim to understand how all of the various factions and pressures are likely to play out. I can only speak to the obvious and confirmable -- but the actual outcomes are likely to depend most on the parts that I cannot observe or confirm. Along with a U.S. government that seems to base its decisions only on the obvious and substitutes jingoism and ideology for any hint of rational thought, this is a truly worrisome situation.

I wouldn't breathe too deeply just yet.

--Paul

proof of insanity

[fermion]

Here is the scenario. We generally want to be able to defend ourselves using what ever means necessary, but there are some means hat are so dangerous that we cannot actually let the normal chain of command control the use of such weapons. This inevitable means that such weapons become less reliable, less likely to be used, and less of a threat. Sure it is one thing to insure a weapon cannot be used against a friendly, but it is quite another to say that we must protect it from those who are fully authorized to use them. If you think about it, we don't even take that much care to insure friendly weapons do not fall into terrorist hands. If we have a weapon, don't keep it from being used. If we can't use it, then don't have, at least not in huge numbers. This does not even bring into account the reliability of certain components(not theoretical, but the actually reliability of manufactured items).

Which is just to say that the US nuclear weapon program is one of the greatest examples of pork in history. The pork potion of the program was initiated in response to questionable analysis by the CIA, and lead to such events as the Iran-Contra drug running scandals. It is important to note that up to the point of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CIA was reporting that Union was stable, strong, and an imminent threat. The 2.2 trillion 1980's dollar spent, along with an equal amount spent by the political successor of that administration, should be the envy of any tax and spend democrat, and has surely lead to a total deficit that will likely be at least 75% of GDP by the end of 2008.

Re:the PAL system was neutered by US generals

[SnowZero]

Wow, that glosses over reality very nicely. The codes were all zeros until the 80's, because said generals refused to implement a system that would prevent them from "hitting back". The keys were all set by 1977, and the "all 0's" codes were only used on ICBMs stationed in the US by that time. It's worth noting that US ICBMs required dual-activated keys, so it was still secure against a single compromised person (but not two due to the bad codes). Bombs overseas had proper codes once they got PALs (which did take too long to deploy). So, while it took far too long to deploy proper security, lets at least get our facts right.

There isn't a really good reason the British should take 21 years longer than the (already late) US to deploy PALs with proper codes, and over 40 years later to use a dual-key initiation. "Someone else was late doing it" is not an excuse, especially when you are twice as late.

A recent newspaper article claimed otherwise

[Master of Transhuman]

...that Pakistan's nukes do NOT have PALs installed.

So somebody has got it wrong. Either they had them in 2003 or they didn't - or only some of them have it. The article I read said that Pakistan relied on separating the fissile material and the rest of the weapon components to keep them secure. And that Pakistan has not and will not reveal the location of their weapons to the US, fearing that the US would take them out if the US perceived they were at threat of being seized by Islamic militants in the country, leaving Pakistan defenseless against India's nuclear arsenal.

I suspect the earlier article about PALs was propaganda intended to allay people's fears that Pakistan's nukes are inadequately controlled.