Former Crypto-Analyst Analyzes the Danger of Nuclear Weapon Stockpiles

An anonymous reader writes "IEEE Spectrum reports that noted encryption pioneer Prof. Martin Hellman has a new passion; estimating the risk of our current nuclear weapons policies. His web site, Defusing the Nuclear Threat, asks the question, 'How risky are nuclear weapons? Amazingly, no one seems to know.' Hellman therefore did a preliminary analysis and found the risk to be 'equivalent to having your home surrounded by thousands of nuclear power plants.' The web site and a related statement therefore urgently call for more detailed studies to either confirm or correct his startling conclusion. The statement has been signed by seven notable individuals including former NSA Director Adm. Bobby R. Inman and two Nobel Laureates."

Comments

And he is qualified how?

[Lawrence_Bird]

Basis of his 'estimates'? Access to SIOP? Access to any other data, either physical or strategic of our, our allies or our 'adversaries' nuclear weapons/plans? Oh.. zero? By all means lets trumpet his 'work' outside his area of training as authoritative, complete with requisite frightening headlines.

Re:it's a very long way from encryption algorithms

[tomtomtom777]

Just because this guy invented (or part-invented) an encryption technique, he is not necessarily an expert in any other field - no matter how much of a celebtrity he may be.

Just because this guy invented an encryption technique, doesn't mean he less capable of studying the risks than some nuclear expert. At a first glance, he doesn't seem to claim anything outrageous.

Beware of "celebrities" with a cause, but not necessarily more or less then "experts" with a cause

Re:misleading summary

[gnick]

Well, to be fair, it makes as much sense as having enough weapons to destroy the Earth 56 times. I'm personally of the opinion that way too much $$$ goes into maintaining the size of the stockpile that we have. But, the massive size isn't as ludicrous as it might sound. The point of having too many weapons isn't so that you can wipe out huge regions multiple times - Just the opposite. By having a large range of nuclear capabilities, you can hit small strategic targets or large targets as necessary while minimizing "splash". If all we had was huge city-killers that could kill the earth once, we'd have to kill huge regions just to hit small hardened targets. But, we have city killers and (relatively) small target killers. Of course, just how small we can design them is restricted by international treaty to make sure that we're not tempted to deploy except in dire need.

Re:misleading summary

[Cairnarvon]

The point of having a stockpile of nuclear weapons isn't to use it, it's *only* to act as a detterent. There's no nuclear weapon small enough that it won't seriously impact innocent civilians, unless you're targetting tiny islands in the Pacific.

Re:Junk Science

[vrmlguy]

Real scientists should shun engineers who warn about. This guy has a completely unverifiable model and feeds garbage information into it. He's trying to predict the likelihood of deterrence failing. But it's never failed, so he has no data to go off of. Not only has it never failed, when we think deterrence has been close to failing, we have no way of knowing how close. By that logic, on the morning January 28, 1986, NASA's management was right to ignore the engineers warning that the Space Shuttle Challenger might explode. Those guys also had an unverifiable model: A shuttle had never failed, so they had no data to go off of. Not only had it never failed, they had no way of knowing how close it had ever come to failing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster

Re:misleading summary

[gnick]

I mostly agree. Nuclear war would be abysmal and should be avoided at (nearly) any cost. But, your deterrent is only as good as your ability.

If Elbonia possesses a single nuclear weapon strong enough to destroy the entire planet, other countries would assume that they could molest Elbonia quite a bit before pushing them far enough to employ their nuclear 'arsenal'. Even small-scale nuclear attacks may go unresponded.

But, if Elbonia possesses a large selection of tiny nukes that could target arbitrary targets globally with minimal side effects, that would be a reasonable deterrent to keep other nations from harassing Elbonia . Nations would refrain from nuking Elbonia for fear that Elbonia would actually respond in kind.

Basically, you have to be able to convince the world that you *could* use your arsenal and *would* use your arsenal if you had to. It's a disgusting situation, but it's reality for now.

And, the stockpile isn't *just* to have a deterrent. It's mainly for use as a deterrent and, gods-willing, it will never be needed for anything else. But, if we were nuked, it would become a horrible but possibly necessary actual selection of weaponry... If we were to ever set some idiotic policy such as "we would never deploy nuclear weapons for any reason", we would no longer have a deterrent and would be inviting attack.

Re:misleading summary

[Dun Malg]

Imagine if you would a nuclear storage facility in Russia which during a routine disposal of a weapon something goes horribly wrong and it goes off Imagine throwing a pile of bricks and a bucket of mortar in the air and having them come down fully assembled into a perfect patio barbecue. That's about the likelihood of your scenario. Setting off nukes isn't like lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite. It requires very precise timing, a virtually simultaneous detonation of the high explosives surrounding the warhead. An accidental detonation would be highly asymmetrical and merely result in the immediate area being peppered with fragments of plutonium.

Re:Thousands of nuclear plants...

[MicktheMech]

Yeah, the comparison seems to have more to do with the safety of nuclear power plants than the danger of nuclear weapons. Don't get me wrong, Nuclear power plants create a large potential hazard, but with the systems in place now they're a lot less dangerous than people perceive them to be.