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Computer Scientist Looks At ICBM Security
An anonymous reader writes "Computer security guru Matt Blaze takes a tour of a decommissioned ICBM complex in Arizona. Cool photos, insightful perspective on two man control, perimeter security, human factors and why we didn't blow ourselves up. From the article: 'The most prominent security mechanism at the Titan site, aside from the multiple layers of thick blast-proof entry doors and the fact that the entire complex is buried underground, was procedural: almost all activities required two person control. Everywhere outside of the kitchen, sleeping quarters and toilet were "no lone zones" where a second person had to be present at all times, even for on-duty members of the launch crews.'"
It may take two people to launch an ICBM, but it only takes one troll to launch a first post!
I joke but human redundancy is probably your best bet and pretty reassuring considering I've seen Dr. Strangelove twenty times or so. Also I enjoyed this picture. Is it a good idea to store the keys right above the safe to the Emergency War Orders? No matter, if you know the combination to the lock and have a twenty pound sledge, those hastily welded rings holding on the safety padlocks will take a few seconds to remove.
My work here is dung.
. Jets at the bottom of the silo spray water at the exhaust flames during a launch to create steam, which dampens the massive sound and vibration created by the engines, preventing damage to the missile surface as it leaves the silo
So, all we'd have to do is turn off the valve from the pond that says "DON'T TURN OFF!" and the missile will ruin itself on launch.
Da?
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
An article this excellent is rare enough that it deserves special recognition. Thanks to the author for taking this trip to the middle of nowhere, and relating the experience so lucidly, that I feel almost like I was there myself.
At one point both were stockpiling nuke upon nuke and then it all went away to what it is today.
For better or worse they've kept the peace. We haven't had to contend with anything larger than a brush fire war since WW2. WW2 claimed 60,000,000+ lives. WW1 took another 37,000,000. Nuclear weapons are the primary reason that there hasn't been a WW3.
That's one of the reasons why I think those that talk of a future without nuclear weapons must have slept through history class. Get rid of nuclear weapons (not that you really could but for the sake of the argument...) and it's only a matter of time before mankind fights another industrialized global conflict. It's only a matter of time before an arms race breaks out that would make the Cold War look like a peace conference by comparison.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
My cousin was one of those guys with the keys and a gun and a buddy for many years. He's retired now and shares the stories at family reunions. He was a colonel so I'm sure he knows exactly what he can and cannot talk about. What's even better are his stories about winter life in rural North Dakota.
This stuff has been out in the open for years.
So what if the Limeys decided to get some revenge for 1776?
They already did. It didn't involve nuclear weapons though. They used something far more deadly and destructive.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Great article. As someone who grew up in Cheyenne, WY near F.E. Warren AFB (an AFB without planes or a landing strip - you can guess the mission) the details of these monsters have always fascinated me. I'd hear stories from my friends whose dads worked either as the missile capsule crews themselves or were maintenance personnel.
If Slashdot readers are flying in and out of Denver International Airport (or any area around CO, NE, WY) you can look out the window and see the launch facilities from the air. Amid the farm lands and country roads, you can look down and see an outcrop of buildings and maybe a quonset hut or two, and then a separate concrete reinforced pad maybe a hundred yards away; the whole area carefully fenced. You can tell they don't quite fit in with everything else. The number of them is startling. Yeah, in fact a little scary. But the author is correct when he states that in the (then) USSR they had the exact same thing pointing at us. Gives me the willies still.
Those who are interested to read more about the global nuclear complex are encouraged to read a recent book A Nuclear Family Vacation . It is written by a husband-wife duo, both of which are professional writers/journalists, both with a professional focus in defense. They spent a number of family vacations visiting landmarks of nuclear significance: the Trinity Test Site, Nevada Test Site, Oak Ridge, Kwajalein atoll, Cheney's "undisclosed location" bunker, Cheyenne Mountain, a Soviet test site in Kazakhstan, a Soviet secret city (like Los Alamos), and even eventually visited Iran's enrichment facility near Isfahan. Along the way, aside from the basic travelogue reporting of what's there, they reflect a bit on the enormity of the whole system, how it worked, and the miracle that we're still alive. They also discuss the current state and future of the US nuclear arsenal, the reliable replacement warhead program, and point out that there are still plenty of nukes out there, and Armageddon is still only about 30 minutes away.
Even if the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone hot it wouldn't have been the "end" of the human race nor even the United States. At that point in time the Soviet Union only had a handful of nuclear weapons that could reach the United States. That was one of the reasons they sought to station missiles in Cuban -- to even out the odds. We had hundreds of warheads that could reach the Soviet Union. They had a few dozen that could reach the United States. They could hurt us really badly -- but we could utterly obliterate them.
There's a good alternate history scenario that I once upon a time that posits a Soviet first strike on Washington that takes out Kennedy, Johnson and most of the civilian leadership. In so doing the Soviet Union seals it's own doom -- Kennedy might have ordered a measured strike in response but without him around the military implements the SIOP and proceeds to completely destroy the Soviet Union.
Khrushchev knew about this disadvantage and it no doubt played a part in his decision to back down. The fact that we offered him a behind the scenes deal to dismantle our similar missile installation in Turkey also helped.
Anyway, who knows what the next war will look like, if there even is one. It's entirely possible that we could fight another major war without anybody using them. I don't regard it as likely but there is a precedent for it. Most of the major combatants in WW2 had poison gas programs but none of them dared to use them against each other. The only time gas was used was against countries (China) that lacked the means to retaliate. Right up until the bitter end neither the Germans nor Japanese decided to use their chemical weapons.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Extremely aggressive people are ironically suicidal most of the time. Personally, I think you would have to be to sign up for most military services. I would say that it's not that most of them have any particular grievance or target or political view, but that they have a need to lash out at something, even themselves.
A competent defense will take this into account. It's the philosophy behind Judo, for instance. Take your attacker's weaknesses into account. The fragility of his determination to do himself good rather than merely to do someone harm, and the mistakes this creates, is definitely a weakness.
The USSR's failure in Afghanistan is a textbook example. As is Hitler's opening the Eastern front and marching into the Russian winter. But it's deeper than just a strategic blunder. Consider the Stockholm syndrome, current suicides in the US armed forces, hell even Vietnam. Many aggressors will completely give up and psychologically join the other side at the slightest sign of resistance. In fact I imagine it's a useful evolutionary trait to run towards the victor in any conflict. But aggressors also often don't think through the consequences of their actions until it's too late, at which point cognitive dissonance sets in and they become regretful and despondent. It's easy to see how this individual trait can express itself at a national level, especially in a democracy. A nation can march itself right off a cliff in order to spite an enemy, almost as easily as an individual.
Obama Bi den -- coincidence or not, this example is just too eerie to ignore.
Personally, I'm not sure I agree that cold war spending risked the US in a significant way. We did a passable job of making defense investments as dual-use as possible. As wasteful as much of it was, America still has significant resources. I am however concerned about the social and legal changes that such a massive collective effort brought about in American society.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I'd like to point you all to the Titan I Epitaph website: http://www.chromehooves.net/Titan_Epitaph_main.htm . It's 2 parts urban exploring, 2 parts history, and a surprising amount of original technical documentation (including a "guidebook for the planning, construction, phasing, systems integration, installation and checkout, turnover and activation of the operational Titan I complexes and their support facilities"). If you've got an afternoon to waste, you won't be disappointed.
Just an FYI but Star Trek First Contact was filmed here.
No, actually they didn't:
Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, read U.S. weakness in the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and blustered publicly that he might retaliate by driving the U.S. out of West Berlin. U.S. President John Kennedy, in return, openly boasted that the U.S. possessed many more (and more accurate and deliverable) nuclear missiles and warheads than the U.S.S.R., and would consider striking first with them if it ever found itself at a military disadvantage. Kennedy's claim was true; in 1962, the U.S.S.R. had at most 20 or 30—perhaps as few as four — functional, deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs); the U.S. had several hundred. Nevertheless, Kennedy had claimed, during his presidential campaign, that the incumbent Eisenhower's administration had allowed the Soviets to get ahead of the U.S. in missiles, causing a "missile gap." A missile gap did exist, as Kennedy knew, but in reverse; it had always been the U.S. that was far ahead of the U.S.S.R. in such weapons. Once in office, Kennedy dropped the old story about the "missile gap" and brandished the United States's nuclear superiority openly against Khrushchev.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
All the policies that SAC (Strategic Air Command) enacted are still present in every day life of a Missileer (Those of us who still man underground silos). Mainly concepts like TPC (Two person concept) along with TPC (Two person control). Both of these allow us to operate in a very safe environment. The best time the public hears about nukes is when they don't hear about them.
to be fair WW1 and WW2 were just another in the long line of European wars going back to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire when the French conquered most of Germany. short time later a bunch of French conquered England and then went to war with the rest of France for the next few hundred years.
the French, Germans and English have been fighting each other on a regular schedule for hundreds of years. after the Spanish drove out the Moors the Spanish added themselves to the regular conflicts. When the Russians became a unified nation they added themselves as well and the sides changed every so often as former allies went to war and then became allies again. for a while the English and the French were bitter enemies for hundreds of years until the mid 1800's when the allied themselves against Prussia and the new nation of Germany
i've read that if you extrapolate the casualties of the 30 Years War to modern population numbers than it was a lot more destructive than WW2.
with the EU and other global organizations we seem to have broken the cycle for now
I love reading things like this, but the article desperately needed more photos in my opinion. This is a nice page regarding the older Atlas launch silos, which are now decommissioned and (in this case) have private owners. This page is a nice view of a Minuteman III launch facility, which are expected to be in operation until 2025.
For better or worse they've kept the peace.
So far.
When making projections for the success of this strategy it's important to remember how successful it *has* to be. On the issue of *using* nuclear weapons as opposed to be *having the ability to threaten* with them, it has to be 100% effective for a very, very long time before we can take the inevitable first failure and say, "well, on balance it was worth it."
We're making gross simplifications when we say that nuclear weapons helped us "keep the peace". It's too much to reduce the last sixty years of history to The Bomb. It was a huge part of that history, but not the only thing going on. That's the advantage of having *lived* that history as opposed to having *read* about it. What you get in history class is a neat, boiled down summation of a very messy and complicated process.
There were other things going on that probably were prerequisites to the general success of Mutually Assured Destruction as a peace keeping strategy. We can't be entirely sure which ones were critical; or if it weren't some kind of critical aggregation of circumstances.
What I worry about his the human ability to adapt to any situation. The prospect of nuclear holocaust was novel. Now it's not any longer. I'm not sure all the players who are pursuing The Bomb are all that horrified by the prospect of using it. Regional players may count on knocking out their rivals before they can become unassailable -- that's what drove the big arms race between the US and the USSR, but sooner or later somebody will get the upper hand against their bitter enemy.
And once the human race survives it's first war in which most of the damage was done by nuclear weapons (unlike WW2 in which The Bomb was an exclamation point at the end), it'll be much more ready to accept another one.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Only if you look at them in a vacuum. When you consider the size of the Red Army and Soviet violations of their wartime agreements with the Western Allies the picture becomes more balanced. The Soviet Union had more men under arms than all of the Western Allies combined. Until relatively late in the Cold War it was believed that any Soviet attack on Western Europe would quickly overwhelm Allied defenses and the only two options available would be surrender or the nuclear option.
The disparity in conventional forces was the key factor in many decisions made by the Allies. It was the main reason they allowed the West Germans to rearm -- they needed German manpower to help offset the Soviet advantage. It was the main reason the Western Allies poured so many resources into advanced weapons systems and technology. It was the main reason that the Western Allies invested in nuclear weapons the way they did.
Ever heard of Operation Unthinkable? It was a British General Staff study made at Churchill's detailing the odds facing the Western Allies in a war against the Soviet Union and the ability to conduct an offensive against them. It shows the odds facing the Allies quite clearly. Consider that context along with the Soviet actions in Eastern Europe and it becomes much easier to understand the choices made by the Western Allies after WW2.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Spent 8 years in SAC at ICBM sites on a Combat Targeting Team... we optically aimed the missiles using a theodolite and programmed in the targets and the methods of arriving at the target, as well as the war plans.
If a launch control facility (LCF) did go rogue for some purpose then another LCF would simply "Inhibit" the launch thus preventing it from actually launching. Another safe guard.
Also all members were under the AF 35-7 which was the manual pertaining to human reliability. As an example our team (three man team) had to work together and know each other and if anything seemed to become out of kilter then it was reported for upper staff to review... as an example, one of the guys on my team's wife started talking about leaving him and so he was put on duty in the office until he was evaluated as being "OK".
This was to prevent the stress of a personal relationship of any kind from affecting the work being performed. How often do we hear about someone filing for divorce and the other spouse goes postal... it prevented that kind of thing when dealing from issues of money, family issues, alcohol issues and etc. There was no limit as to what could appear to impact a person and we took it seriously.
Also we each were armed with a side gun to prevent someone from violating the two-man concept spoken about in the article and on some other posts here.
I personally assist in the posturing of missiles at Malmstom, Minot, Whiteman and Grand Forks AFB then was transfered to Vandenburg to assist in launches there.
Each SAC base had a team of experts who evaluated each task that was performed to see that it was completed according to the appropriate technical manual. Also Vandenberg had a special group (3905) that not only evaluated the experts but also the regular staff at all levels again to ensure proficiency and standardization across the various bases.
It was hard work but it was fun too. Sort of like the work we do today.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
No they didn't The ones that they had where not very practical.
That is one reason why the Eisenhower pushed so hard to not go nuts building ICBMs because we had more than we needed.
The SS-6 Which had just gone on alert in 1959 took two days to get ready to launch and was easy to notice. The USSR had four on alert in 1962. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/r-7.htm
It's replacement the SS-8 didn't enter service until 1965. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/r-9.htm
The only bomber that could really reach the US was the Bear but they where few and the US Air Defenses where actually pretty good at that time. The M-4 could only reach the US on a one way trip and the USSR didn't make many of them. They did use them a lot for propaganda.
The Bager was a good bomber but the USSR lacked forward bases for them so they where only really a threat to Europe, Japan, and US naval forces.
So the USSR really had only 4 ICBMs that might hit the US and those took a very long time to launch. They did have around 100 Bears and maybe 20 Bisons that could have reached the US but how many would have gotten through the almost completely intact US Air Defensives is up for debate.
At the time of Cuban Missile Crisis the US several delevery systems that could threaten the USSR.
The B-52 fleet was still a real threat.
The B-47 fleet while winding down where still active and could hit the USSR from their forward bases.
The B-58 was active and could hit the USSR as well.
The Atlas was in service.
32 Atlas Ds
32 Atlas Es
80 Atlas Fs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas#Service_history
There was around 60 Titan Is in service, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGM-25A_Titan_I
The US has a massive advantage in Bombers and ICBMs at that time.
In the area of SLBM the US had just about as big of an advantage
And the Polaris was in service and the US had 9 SSBNs in service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_class_submarine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Allen_class_submarine
The USSR had 21 Golf class SSBs and 8 Hotel SSBNs So the USSR had a 3 to 1 advantage in the number of boats but that doesn't really tell the whole story.
The USSR's SLBM was the R-13 which had a range of less the 400 miles. Not only that but the Subs had to surface to launch and it took up 10 minutes to launch. The math gets worse for the USSR because each sub only carried 3 R-13s. So the USSR could only threaten coastal areas of the US and had to surface within 300 miles of the coast of the US to launch. The Hotel class was very loud and had very low performance and reliability issues. The Golf was not nuclear so it had to snorkel often. The US ASW forces at the time where the best in the world and I doubt that they would averaged even once shot each.
The US force was composed of all nuclear boats. They had much higher performance than the Hotel class. When you look at the missile things really start to shift for in the direction of the US. The US boats carried 16 Polaris missiles. The A-1 had a range of over 1000 miles and could be launched while the sub stayed submerged. So while they USSR had three times the number of boats the US boats carried five times as many missiles and they had three times the range. There are reports that they warheads on the Polaris may not have not been reliable but thank goodness we will never found out.
The simple fact is that the US had a huge advantage and the USSR was really trying to bluff their way into Cuba so they could have a real threat to the US.
And this is leaving uncounted the other strike options the US had.
The tact
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
...in South Dakota. The cool thing is that the tours are small (6-8 people), and are led by folks who were actually in the bunkers when they were active. Fascinating stuff...like how the escape hatch actually led to a spot under the parking lot asphalt.
The authors discusses PALs and wonders about their absence. ICBM warheads were (and are) not equipped with PALs, because they are only required on weapons that may be exposed to capture or loss.
The authors mentions the security seems to "have a hard shell and a soft interior". That's because he discusses the veru visible security measures (meant to protect against external threats) but only briefly discusses the surety procedures (meant to protect against internal threats and unauthorized launches) and doesn't realize the full import of the latter. (The full details of the surety procedures are classified and are much more extensive than detailed in the article or in any public source.) I don't think he even realizes there is a difference between the two. I suspect, like the computer geeks I've seen here on Slashdot, that he's a little fuzzy on the difference between electronic (computer and network) security and security in the physical world.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a former ICBM crewman - though I wore Navy blue rather than chair force blue.
I live within 4 miles of one of the Titan II sites in SE Arizona. They are up and down the1-10 and 1-19 freeway from Tucson. When they were decommissioned, the silos were filled with debris and cement and permanently disabled, the control rooms and Blast rooms were not. Many of the sites were sold to people who later covered them up. Some didn't do such a good job and I was able to find one that afforded access, although you had to shimmy down a small shaft about 30 feet to get to the Control center and the crew quarters. I wasn't the first to do this and there were some pics on flicker that were taken by other "explorers".
One of the things that struck me was the extreme solitude you got inside one of these. All of the instrumentation and most of the furnishings have long ago been stripped out. There were lots of electronic cabinets and a few desirable computer racks (including a nice DEC PDP rack I could have used for my PDP-11)
The Titan II ICBM's were large a liquid fueled and were extremely dangerous. The Titan II was used to launch the Gemini capsules in the 60's. There was a greater danger due to a hydrazine explosion (like the one one in Arkansas) than by a nuclear explosion. Still, I shudder to thing of a 9 megaton nuclear warhead parked 4 miles from my house...for 20 years!! The Titan II ICBM had the distinction of carrying the largest nuclear warhead by a missile...ever! Later the one big warhead were replaced by several smaller mirv warheads.
I remember after crawling through the access shaft and walking through the terrible dark control center and then using a ladder to get to the crew quarters, I could have imagined what it was to be working in one of these. Someone else had that feeling also and inscribed by one of the places where the bunks may have been, I saw this graffiti written on the cement wall of the bunker:
"You've just launched a motherfukin nuclear missile and started World War III and doomed mankind...It's Miller Time!"