Launch Command Preserved In Power Failure, But Nuclear Designs Still Risky

With a follow-up to Tuesday's story, Martin Hellman writes "Slashdot reported that a system failure at Warren AFB in Wyoming affected 50 ICBMs and that 'various security protocols built into the missile delivery system, like intrusion alarms and warhead separation alarms, were offline.' Assuaging fears that America's nuclear deterrent might have been compromised during this failure, the source article notes that the missiles still could be launched from airborne command centers. Other reports cite an administration official offering assurances that 'at no time did the president's ability [to launch] decrease.' Given the difficulty of debugging software and hardware that is probably not a good thing. The history of nuclear command and control systems has too many examples of risky designs that favor the ability to launch over the danger of an accidental one."

Comments

Why have them

[baresi]

Exaggerated threats from relatively weak entities. Questionable need in 1950 never mind 2010.

Re:Why have them

[blair1q]

Questionable need in 1950 never mind 2010.

Then they worked, and are continuing to work.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

This tiger-repelling rock worked then, and it works now: look, no tigers!

Re:Why have them

[hedwards]

That doesn't apply here. The difference is that there's no plausible reason why a rock would repel tigers. Especially since I'm assuming you aren't in a place where tigers are likely to come.

The point of nuclear weapons is to deter conflicts on the scale of the world wars from ever happening again, and so far they've done that admirably. They were never intended for the purpose of dealing with smaller scale outbreaks of violence even ones as large as the Iraq war.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not an accurate statement.
The tiger repelling rock works based on a lack of tigers. The tigers are not actually repelled by the rock.

Nuclear missiles are actually effective in deterring large coordinated attacks from countries with military might.
The cold war is proof of this, no massive attacks were launched due to the threat of nuclear missiles on each side.

It is not necessarily a _good_ solution but the effects were no illusion either.

Re:Why have them

[blair1q]

Well, nuclear ICBMs weren't, but we certainly did have programs to develop tactical nukes and even backpack bombs. But we decided for various reasons that we shouldn't be using nukes on that scale, and should just use them for when we have no alternatives and need the massive effect for which they are the only tool, and because they are a very thorough deterrent.

Re:Why have them

[khallow]

Before nukes, you had tigers. After nukes, a hell of a lot less tigers. For those who aren't keen on link clicking, the first link shows a map of 18 countries annexed by the USSR prior to 1948. There's also North Korea (1945) and China (1949) though only the former had direct USSR military involvement. Since then, the USSR has only directly invaded one country, Afghanistan, that wasn't already occupied by it.

The presence of considerable nuclear weapons do a great job of explaining this sudden change in tactics by the USSR.

Re:Why have them

[GooberToo]

They were never intended for the purpose of dealing with smaller scale outbreaks of violence even ones as large as the Iraq war.

Actually they were. It was later decided that this class of weapon countered MAD politics and may actually encourage wide spread use of larger nuclear devices. In turn, these weapons provided limited tactical value, not to mention a long list of logistical and security issues. As such, such weapon programs ceased to be.

Re:Why have them

[Peeteriz]

Nukes would definitely still be used for tactical purposes in any large-scale military conflict (which hasn't happened for quite a long time). NATO vs Russia, Russia vs China, China vs USA, India vs Pakistan, China vs India - if any of these pairs got into full-scale conflict, then definitely any tight grouping of 100.000+ soldiers+armor should fear a nuclear warhead, and such groupings would be inevitable.

Re:Why have them

[Pharmboy]

Expect some bad mods for being right. Everyone likes to pretend that the Cold War didn't happen, and most of the people with the strongest opinions didn't live during it, have never served in the military or had relatives that did during the Cold War. Plenty of mistakes have been made along the way (Vietnam for starters), but having a strong military and nuclear deterrent since WWII wasn't one of them.

While I understand why, most people under 30 don't fully appreciate the threat of the USSR after WWII as they are fortunate enough to not have lived under it. Ironically, the reason they haven't lived under that threat is due to what some are complaining about to begin with.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

As for the article: GREAT NEWS! I feel so much better knowing that although everything else failed, including safety measures preventing accidents, those missiles could still be launched and destroy some cities. It would have been such a shame if these missiles had been paralyzed and thus prevented from causing an accident.

In other news, I'm a lot more afraid of the US government having nuclear weapons than Iran.

Re:Why have them

[Pharmboy]

then definitely any tight grouping of 100.000+ soldiers+armor should fear a nuclear warhead, and such groupings would be inevitable.

Wrong answer. No military is going to group 100k soldiers in an area that can taken out by a single warhead, and never would have. Ever. Even in WWII we were only able to kill 100k people by striking civilians. This is the whole reason you have multiple military bases, to distribute you capabilities and make it impossible for an enemy to take out a significant portion with a single strike. With the exception of training bases, military posts generally have less than 10k people, and often less than 5k people stationed there, for this exact reason. The remainder of the work force on a base are civilians.

And you won't see tactical nuclear weapons being used in the field likely ever, as that is the invisible line in the sand that would justify the enemy using nukes, perhaps on civilian targets. And there is no justification for using them against an enemy without nuclear capability. If an enemy used tactical nukes on us, we would still use them as a strategic weapon in retaliation, against fixed targets, not mobile troops. Even though we have them, tactical nuclear weapons make no sense, as they are solely a deterrent, a strategic weapon. Perhaps this is why they were all under SAC (Strategic Air Command) and not TAC (Tactical Air Command) during the Cold War, including all ICBMs (obviously excepting navel based warheads under the Nuclear Triad philosophy: Bombers, ICBMs, Submarines)

So, such groupings are not only NOT inevitable, they are highly unlikely as there is no tactical or strategic advantage to such a grouping, and tremendous risks.

Re:Why have them

[pnewhook]

Since then, the USSR has only directly invaded one country, Afghanistan, that wasn't already occupied by it.

And how about the countries the US has invaded and the DOZENS of countries where the CIA has overthrown democratically elected leaders and put puppet governments in their place?

Re:Why have them

[khallow]

And how about the countries the US has invaded and the DOZENS of countries where the CIA has overthrown democratically elected leaders and put puppet governments in their place?

I guess nuclear weapons don't fix every problem, do they? Still you have to wonder how many more countries the US would have invaded, if the USSR didn't have its own nukes, wouldn't you?

Re:Why have them

[SleazyRidr]

So our nukes worked, but theirs didn't!

Go USA!

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

But think of the 'impact' of nuking part of Waziristan... or Iran. Sure, the nuclear fist is probably like killing flies with a howitzer but boy, would it get attention.

Re:Why have them

[dgatwood]

The point of nuclear weapons is to deter conflicts on the scale of the world wars from ever happening again, and so far they've done that admirably. They were never intended for the purpose of dealing with smaller scale outbreaks of violence even ones as large as the Iraq war.

No, they really haven't done the job admirably. WWI and WWII were almost entirely European wars. It wasn't until Japan attacked the U.S. that WWII became global by an stretch. Until then, it was just a regional conflict in Europe and a second one between Japan and China. Similarly, it wasn't until Germany tried to get Mexico to attack the United States that WWI became in any meaningful sense global. At that point in each war, the U.S. came in, kicked some ass, and ended it. I know that's an oversimplification, but a remarkable number of conflicts over the nears have been stomped into the ground by U.S. military intervention or the threat thereof.

Three things have deterred conflicts on the scale of world wars from ever happening again:

• The U.S. and its allies vastly outclass every other country's military, and have shown a willingness to use that superiority while acting as the world's police force to kick countries out of other countries when they invade. World War I and II would both have ended much sooner had it not been for policies of appeasement by the U.S. and, in the case of WWII, Britain.
• The U.S. and its allies vastly outclass every military ruled over by a nutjob dictator or a single-power "democracy".
• The increase in trading around the world means that no country can feasibly eliminate its trade with a significant percentage of other countries.

The only thing nuclear weapons do is pose risk to the American public. The reality of the matter is that the U.S. will never use nuclear weapons again, and everyone knows it. An empty threat cannot a deterrent make. A weapon unused is a useless weapon, as they said in the movie Spies Like Us.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

No military is going to group 100k soldiers in an area that can taken out by a single warhead, and never would have.

Not willingly, but massed formations can be funneled into areas where nukes can be used on them more effectively; the 1980's version of the Hot Gates. Take a close look at the topography and forested areas of West Germany during the latest part cold war.

Yes, I have seen the big board.

Re:Why have them

[geekoid]

Highly unlikely. To damaging. The land would be useless, the PR would be a nightmare and damage whatever cause you have, and you risk retaliatory strike.

AS a practicaly use weapon, there is n gain. As a retaliatory deterrent, a necessity.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

...the invisible line in the sand that would justify the enemy using nukes...

is the use of chemical weapons.

Re:Why have them

[rickb928]

So let me get this straight, and undo the damage my teachers have done...

"It wasn't until Japan attacked the U.S. that WWII became global by an stretch."

"Similarly, it wasn't until Germany tried to get Mexico to attack the United States that WWI became in any meaningful sense global."

WWI and WWII were regional conflicts until the protaganists made them global.

That clears things up a lot.

So WWI was regional until France and England, no, wait, Germany tried to spread it to us that it became 'globalized' and we had an excuse to get involved. France being overrun and various European nations being eliminated wasn't of sufficient import to justify our involvement. Neither was Germany's intention to dominate the continent. And certainly we threatened Germany by our involvement on Britain's side, though of course we need not have concerned ourselves with the prospect of the European continent being subsumed into a German empire.

And WWI Was just a regional conflict until England, no, France, no, wait, Russia, no actually Japan attacked US territory and got us involved. All that unpleasantness of Germany bombing England was just not important enough for us to get into it. Of course, Hitler's plans for world domination didn't really threaten us, though Japan might have been concerned, which would explain their attacks on Germany. Certainly, the U.S. could have sat this one out as two different nations plotted world domination, since we weren't really at risk except for Hawaii, and that being so far away that it shouldn't have given us much of a fright.

For those of you not reading carefully, that was sarcasm.

Really. Just for context, when were you born?

Re:Why have them

[Dahamma]

At first I thought you were arguing that since the proliferation of nukes, there have been a lot less *actual* tigers. Which weirdly, is not only true, but largely caused by the countries you mention!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Tiger_distribution3.PNG

Re:Why have them

[h4rr4r]

You forgot Africa.

Re:Why have them

[burkmat]

And you won't see tactical nuclear weapons being used in the field likely ever, as that is the invisible line in the sand that would justify the enemy using nukes, perhaps on civilian targets. And there is no justification for using them against an enemy without nuclear capability.

Remind me again how WWII ended for Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Re:Why have them

[Rich0]

If the US launched an all-out strategic attack on an opponent, they would also launch tactical attacks on opponent military forces. It isn't like the ships at sea would stop fighting just because there is nobody left at home to fight for...

I think that this the logic behind tactical nuclear weapons. Plus, they give an army more options, and commanders always like having options.

Re:Why have them

[dgatwood]

You mean the Ottoman Empire getting involved in WWI? They're bordering the Mediterranean Sea. They might not be part of Europe (though Turkey is in the EU), but it's hardly a stretch to think of them as being part of the same basic region of the world, particularly given how narrow the Strait of Gibraltar is.

Re:Why have them

[couchslug]

"And how about the countries the US has invaded and the DOZENS of countries where the CIA has overthrown democratically elected leaders and put puppet governments in their place?"

Minor scuffles in the overall struggle. They evoke emotions, but looked at coldly, they were sideshows. Sometimes useful, sometimes not, but all of the war effort by both sides was of a piece.

The stakes were far too great (do not forget that the main competitors had direct experience of a world war most of them didn't spend in their mothers basement) to consider the fate of minor countries.

Re:Why have them

[dgatwood]

I never said that the U.S. wasn't affected. It just wasn't affected enough to drag it into a war that was mostly happening halfway around the globe.

One could reasonably argue that World War I wasn't a world war even after the U.S. became involved. Everyone involved was basically fighting on a single continent with the exception of Japanese naval involvement, as far as I'm aware. (Russia is generally considered to be a European nation.) BTW, to be pedantic, the Germans didn't technically threaten to spread the war to the U.S., but rather threatened to spread it to the U.S. IF the U.S. got involved on the side of the British, which up until that direct threat, the U.S. was not planning to do.

World War II was somewhat more global in that there were two theaters of combat instead of one. However, one could easily argue that it was really two regional wars that happened to be started by allies. Officially WWII is defined as having begun with the German invasion of Poland. However, the Japanese war with China had been ongoing for several years prior to that point, and the spread of that conflict to other neighboring regions was still a regional conflict. Up until Japan went after a non-neighboring country (the U.S.), WWII consisted of a regional conflict in Europe and a regional conflict in Asia.

So basically the only thing other than the entrance of a non-Eurasian power into the mix that made either World War I or World War II a world war was the use of naval forces to attack ships at sea. However, this was characteristic of nearly every European war for centuries. It was spread across more of the globe due to greater worldwide trade, but it was still principally a case of European powers going after European ships. Either way, nuclear weapons are not a deterrent to ships at sea, as you can't hit a moving target with an ICBM. Further, the only countries that have large enough naval forces to pull off the sorts of things Germany did with their Navy are all large enough economic powers with strong enough ties to the other countries that such a war would be infeasible in this day and age.

What, then, was so global about World War I or World War II that makes it so fundamentally different from any number of other wars since then? The fact that Germany happened to be strong enough to pull off the victory, whereas Iraq lost its war with Iran? If Iraq had been a larger power and had successfully taken over Iran before taking over Kuwait, would that have been a world war then? If Iraq had been densely populated like Europe and had seen similar death tolls due to having more people to fight, would that have made it a world war? Where do you draw the line? My point is that at least where World War I is concerned, the distinction is completely arbitrary, and seems to largely hinge upon how big the country was that did the invading. And where World War II is concerned, it was only the fact that Japan and Germany had the ability to attack countries well outside of their neighborhoods that made the war interesting, and it was not until one of them actually did so (Japan bombing Pearl Harbor) that it became a truly unique war.

Either way, the point remains that the main thing that has prevented wars on the scale of WWI and WWII is globalization of markets, not any nuclear deterrent. Going to war with any major power would mean the destruction of the economies of all the nations involved, which inherently limits conflicts to small regional conflicts among smaller nations. It has squat to do with nuclear missiles. Nuclear weapons are only an effective deterrent between two powers of approximately equal magnitude---India versus Pakistan, the U.S. versus the U.S.S.R., and so on. In this day and age, the U.S. having nuclear missiles isn't really buying the U.S. much except for expensive upkeep and a bunch of prime terrorist targets, neither of which strikes me as a real benefit....

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

You are wrong. SAC never had anything but strategic nuclear weapons; airborne launched bombs and ICBMs are strategic; for targeting cities. However the US Army fielded Davy Crocketts and a variety of nuclear artillery in Germany, up to the Pershing II missle armed with the M85 thermonuclear warhead (max 80kT). These were designed to stop Soviet tanks from rolling across the German plain, as the Soviets outnumbered the entire NATO tank contingent, all European and US tanks, by a 2 to 1 margin. It was well known that if the Soviets chose to invade Europe, they would be across Europe in a few days, and to give NATO time to deploy these tactical nuclear weapons would need to be used.

Also, there was a TAC nuclear weapon; the B57 had a yield of 10kT and could be deployed by a fighter or even a Navy helicopter as a nuclear depth charge. There were also nuclear land mines too; those are also tactical.

Re:Why have them

[Pharmboy]

If the US launched an all-out strategic attack on an opponent

China? Russia? What do you think the odds are that we would be doing a First Strike against any nuclear power? Correct answer: Zero, nada, zip. This means they would be used as a second strike, which is by definition, strategic positioning of weaponry, and the founding idea behind the Nuclear Triad. They wouldn't be bombing boots on the ground in China, too much chance for collateral damage, and the real goodies aren't even the soldiers (which can be handily taken care of with conventional weapons.) The real goodies are infrastructure. If the shit were literally to hit the fan and you have to second strike (as I discount ALL possibilities of a first strike by the US), you nuke dams, power plants, nuclear facilities, military installations, and maybe even factories and shipyards. Yes, soldiers would die, but the real target is infrastructure. If China landed troops on the west coast, tactical nuclear wouldn't be an option except as a hail mary. You don't piss in your own chili that way.

While the Geneva Convention is against it, the most effective way is to nuke rice patties making them unusable for years, literally starving the troops. Same reason for bombing dams, to destroy the ability to feed themselves as arable land is now flooded with radiation and washed away in the resulting flood. Then, I'm not exactly a huge fan of the idea of "rules" of war. Seems pointless since one side always ignores, and the other side always cheats when they can. If you notice, every war since all the rules have been put in place has been a long slogging battle with more death than would be possible if the rules were ignored (Korea, still ongoing, Vietnam, lost, middle east, etc.) And yes, I am aware that I am in the minority on that point, which doesn't negate the truth of the matter.

Re:Why have them

[dgatwood]

No, the U.S. and its allies outclass its enemies because of advanced fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, submarines, carriers, attack helicopters, and conventional munitions. A weapon that you're not willing to use cannot possibly be of any use. It is only the threat of using something that makes it relevant.

You're right that I had forgotten about Australia. In my defense, however, this was an attack on a country that was not fully independent from Britain at the time, and as such, it wasn't nearly as far removed from Europe as the U.S. was. Either way, the fact remains that the ground battles were predominantly European, and that was the point I was trying to make. In any significant war among powers that span the globe, there are always going to be fringe battles in places far removed from the bulk of the fighting.

Re:Why have them

[Type44Q]

...obviously excepting navel based warheads...

Didn't realize belly button lint could be that dangerous... no wonder she's flinches when at I threaten her with it!

Re:Why have them

[KingAlanI]

"In war, brutality is good because it makes the war end quickly." or something along those lines?
+1 Interesting

Re:Why have them

[Hognoxious]

obviously excepting navel based warheads

Yo momma so fat, they use her belly button as a missile silo.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

Africa was an early theater of both wars, and Australia and New Zealand both fought from the start so in a sense at least three continents were involved all the way through both conflicts. I expect the US will remain very reluctant to reduce its arsenal below the level needed for taking out say China or Western Europe for a long time though. Not that it buys any real security mind you, but since when has that been a concern?

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia federated thereby gaining independence in 1901. Don't confuse fighting with our allies for a lack of independence. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour we pulled our forces who had been fighting in the Middle East, Africa and Europe home to fight in the Pacific.

These were not fringe battles, here's a casualty list for just the allies:

3.8 million Chinese military casualties 1937-45 (3.2 million Nationalist/-allied and 580,000 Communist), 354,523 United States casualties (106,207 killed, 248,316 wounded and missing), 52,000 British casualties including 12,000 deaths in captivity, 86,838 British Indian casualties, 17,501 Australian casualties, 57,000 casualties from the Philippine Commonwealth, around 9,400 Dutch casualties including 8,500 who died in captivity, 578 New Zealander casualties, 63,225 Soviet casualties (20,797 killed and missing, 42,428 wounded and sick), 5000 French military casualties in Indochina and 300 Mongolian casualties.

Over 17 million Chinese civilian deaths 1937-45, around 4 million civilian deaths from the Dutch East Indies, two million Indochinese civilians, around 1.5 million British Indian civilian deaths, 1/2 to one million Filipino civilian and hundreds of thousands of Burmese, Malayan, Pacific etc. civilian deaths.

Re:Why have them

[plague911]

Do you seriously consider any of those a major act?

Re:Why have them

[plague911]

"While I understand why, most people under 30 don't fully appreciate the threat of the USSR after WWII as they are fortunate enough to not have lived under it." Bull shit ( I am all for a strong nuclear force etc) but basically Russia had the USA hoodwinked into thinking they were 10* stronger than they actually were. The whole shit with russia was more or less just propagated to further the whole red scare.

Re:Why have them

[dgatwood]

Australia gained independence in many steps. The first of those steps was in 1901. The last was in 1986.

Re:Why have them

[flyingkillerrobots]

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."-Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Re:Why have them

[Vectormatic]

1946 was entirely different from now.

If the US decided to use nukes against a non-nuclear enemy, say a hypothetical invasion of Iran, the entire world would be up in protest, and in certain cases a retaliation from china/russia might even be possible. In 1946, the US had nothing to fear from anyone when nuking japan. (and let's be honest, nuclear weapons back then were less well understood, and far less powerfull then today)

And yeah, tactical nukes are pointless, as soon as you nuke a tank batallion, expect a larger nuke on your forward air bases, giving you no option but to nuke enemy HQ, escalating the entire situation into a full-scale nuclear exchange. Once the nuke is out of the box (even if only a 1 kiloton), you have proved to be willing to deploy nukes, the enemy may just as well go full force pre-emptive strike on you before they get hit any further

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

For the RISK posed by having these, the BENEFIT (of not having war) better last for another 1000 years!

Re:Why have them

[Xest]

"The point of nuclear weapons is to deter conflicts on the scale of the world wars from ever happening again, and so far they've done that admirably."

That's an interesting conclusion, but based on what evidence? How can you be so certain that it's the nuclear weapons that have deterred such conflicts, rather than perhaps just that even the most crazy dictators around nowadays simply don't have either the will or even resources to cause another world war? Russia has no interest in it, because like Europe, it knows the cost of a world war even when conventional weapons are the limit. China has historically never been particularly interested in incursions outside it's border, largely because it has enough problems inside it's borders, and the smaller players will be obliterated with conventional weapons in no time at all.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but you seem to be asserting that your viewpoint is absolutely correct, when it's one of those things we simply can't be sure about- other posters may well be right, the world might well be just as stable even without nuclear weapons, we simply do not know, because we do not have that nuclear weapon free world to compare to.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia and New Zealand fought becouse they are under the yoke on British Empire ...

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

False dichotomy. You're suggesting that the nuclear deterrant by the USSR should have kept those democratically elected leaders in power, and therefore that there is a dichotomy between dictators backed by the USA and democratically elected presidents backed by the USSR. In fact, there were 4 kinds of leaders: Democratically elected leaders friendly to the USA, democratically elected leaders friendly to the USSR, dictators friendly to the USA, and dictators friendly to the USSR. I.e. there were two dimensions, alignment and form of government.

The USA may have had a slight preference for democracies and the USSR for dictatorships, due to their own forms of government. However, alignment was the real factor in CIA support. They'd happily support any leader with US sympathies against any other leader with communist sympathies. But you see a CIA involvment here. These were skirmishes by proxy. And by your framing, you're also missing the most succesful CIA ops, those where they remained invisible. All those USSR-backed dictators that were replaced by democracies? You can bet that the CIA financed and helped the uprisings. That's easy to do stealthily. The best examples are the Eastern European states in the Clinton era. They're now without a doubt firmly part of the West.

Now, why didn't the nuclear forces of the USSR scare the USA here? One, proxy struggles between the CIA and KGB were not between armies, and the stakes were low. Two, the countries that the US invaded were not states with a strong communist alignment; the USSR wouldn't be defending communism by fighting the USA there. Three, the USSR was a dictatorship. They didn't lead an alliance, they occupied other countries. That's vastly more expensive; they really didn't want to occupy more states. The West - an more or less formal alliance of democracies - could expand further easily.

Re:Why have them

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Minor scuffles in the overall struggle. They evoke emotions, but looked at coldly, they were sideshows. Sometimes useful, sometimes not, but all of the war effort by both sides was of a piece.

Iran, Vietnam, Chile? These are countries of tens of millions of people. And far from being a sideshow, the actions in these major regional players shaped the futures of entire continents. The histories of the Middle East, South East Asia and the entirety of South and Central America have been shaped profoundly by the actions of American intelligence agencies. Even if you couldn't care less about the people who died and suffered, you could at least acknowledge that their ordeals wasn't the result of idle US fancy.

The stakes were far too great ... to consider the fate of minor countries.

Yes, profits, influence and public gratification. We all know the reasons for the US going to war and putting other countries into them. Some of us don't necessarily agree with our countries being ruined to make money for CEOs and entertaining footage news programmes.

Re:Why have them

[Pharmboy]

I was not aware of that quote, but was tempted to say as much, particularly if they were dumb enough to enter the SE portion of the US where ownership of military worthy weapons is higher than the rest of the nation. When I have made that point before, people tend to jump in and try to argue against it, saying how tanks, etc. would negate that. They forget the Revolutionary War I suppose, where just a few crazy rednecks hiding in the trees caused havok amongst the most disciplined of troops. Ironically, that was our first experience with terrorism, but we were the terrorists.

Re:Why have them

[tehcyder]

"In war, brutality is good because it makes the war end quickly." or something along those lines? +1 Interesting

-1 fucking stupid more like

Re:Why have them

[tehcyder]

World War I and II would both have ended much sooner had it not been for policies of appeasement by the U.S. and, in the case of WWII, Britain.

I can assure you that Britain wasn't doing much appeasement after 1939 when we declared fucking war on Germany

Re:Why have them

[tehcyder]

Better than being under the yoke of the Japanese empire,.shit-breath.

Re:Why have them

[tehcyder]

though Turkey is in the EU

Not yet it isn't.

Re:Why have them

[tehcyder]

Still you have to wonder how many more countries the US would have invaded, if the USSR didn't have its own nukes, wouldn't you?

Hold on, so you think the USSR gave the US a sort of allocation of countries they could fuck up, with the threat that if they exceeded this quota, then they would nuke them?

Re:Why have them

[khallow]

Hold on, so you think the USSR gave the US a sort of allocation of countries they could fuck up, with the threat that if they exceeded this quota, then they would nuke them?

Absolutely. The US did the same. Such is the bizarre nature of the Cold War.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

The great banks and corporations helped and financed all sides to their own advantage during WWII, during the Cold War and its variations - and beyond. Documented. Verified. They circumvented all bans and propped up or deposed regimes practically at will. Do look it up.

Polarization, nuclear terror and handfuls of periferic conflict render planetloads of plunder and er, "profit". And it only costs planetary misery, planetary suffering and the reining in of the advancement of humankind, to a near standstill. All you have to do is ignore the scratching at the door and the wailing in the night. (Insert geek joke here)

Re:Why have them

[Q-Hack!]

Bull shit ( I am all for a strong nuclear force etc) but basically Russia had the USA hoodwinked into thinking they were 10* stronger than they actually were. The whole shit with russia was more or less just propagated to further the whole red scare.

*Facepalm*

Bravo for making an example of the GP's point.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument is that tanks don't matter, and your evidence is the Revolutionary War. I guess I forgot about all those British tanks at Lexington.

You want to see what really happens when tanks go against a lightly mechanized army? Germany v Poland, 1939. 5 weeks for an area the size of New Mexico.

Re:Why have them

[Johnny5000]

So what you're saying is, other than Africa, Asia, the Pacific islands, the US and Australia, World War II was primarily a localized European conflict?

Re:Why have them

[operagost]

I'd say the terrorists were the ones who were blocking innocent unarmed people into houses and churches and lighting them up.

Re:Why have them

[BornAgainSlakr]

So, have you never read this, or were you being ironic with your signature?

Re:Why have them

[Rich0]

I think it depends on the nature of the occupying force and their objectives and the nature of their government.

The US didn't really win the Revolutionary War so much as it forced the British to stop fighting it. The British clearly could have kept fighting, and they won almost all of their battles. The problem was that they really didn't have any reason to right - the English populace had no desire to brutally suppress a bunch of Western colonists and the body bags were beginning to pile up. They probably could have fought indefinitely, but what would have been the point?

On the other hand, I don't know how many body bags it would take before, say, the Chinese gave up.

Still, controlling any nation the size of the US against a hostile populace is virtually impossible without essentially the support of the entire world.

Ultimately wars on this scale are about a battle of wills. If the occupier can hold out long enough (perhaps measured in generations) then people will settle in and be assimilated. If the populace can keep the occupier in fierce warfare for a long time, they'll probably withdraw.

However, in the real world I can't really think of any scenarios where somebody would actually want to invade and hold territory in the US. I could see maybe an invasion of Hawaii or Alaska or something over some kind of REALLY serious trade dispute. I could even see a nutcase launching a bunch of nukes. However, how would you motivate any population to continue to sustain the millions of casulties that would result from something of the scale of WWII but supported across an ocean? there were doubts that the US could have pulled off a full invasion of Japan if terms of surrender were offered.

Re:Why have them

[Rich0]

I dunno - war is a nasty business no matter what you do. It basically is the ultimate contest of wills - who is willing to sacrifice more and how willing they are to do it. In the end might makes right is how EVERY war has always been fought.

Sure, I don't have to like it, but if you're stuck fighting a war your only options might be to fight in a way you'd rather not, or lose. So, then the question is what is one the line if you lose, and what values are you willing to give up to protect it?

Most value systems don't do well when put to this kind of test.

Re:Why have them

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, nobody would ever do such an insane and risky thing like that.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae

Re:Why have them

[rickb928]

I don't see Western Europe as a threat any time soon, and Eastern Europe, despite their very limited nuclear arsenal(s), a vestige of the Soviet Union, are also not anything to fear for a while.

The Middle East has several players that are developing nuclear capabilities, and at some point one or more will probably develop nuclear weapons. of course Israel is assumed to have them already.

Until we go broke, China is not a nuclear threat.

Re:Why have them

[Pharmboy]

Patton is credit as something to the effect of "Your job isn't to die for your country, it is to make the other guy die for his." War is about attrition, be it bullets, tanks, humans or will. Who ever runs out first, loses. Quick, brutal conflicts tend to remove the will before all the bullets and humans are used up. "Shock and Awe®" was a diluted version of this. The obvious problem is that in the middle east, you have cultures who will "surrender" to simply make it easier to attack you from within. They know that you aren't really going to be brutal in your attacks, and they use this quite well to kill your soldiers.

Re:Why have them

[pnewhook]

Do you seriously consider any of those a major act?

I consider assassinating democratically elected leaders of other countries and putting in puppet governments a major act, yes. Don't you?

Re:Why have them

[pnewhook]

False dichotomy. You're suggesting that the nuclear deterrant by the USSR should have kept those democratically elected leaders in power, and therefore that there is a dichotomy between dictators backed by the USA and democratically elected presidents backed by the USSR.

No, I'm not saying that at all. Read about your own history and educate yourself on the criminal acts of the CIA. It's generally got nothing to do with the USSR.

Re:Why have them

[identity0]

What. What. WHAT.

No, they really haven't done the job admirably. WWI and WWII were almost entirely European wars.

WWI maybe, but those "European" powers controlled a vast amount of the world. Go look at the map of the world circa 1914 sometime. And yes, units from those colonies fought and died both in Europe and the colonial areas.
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/1907powr.htm

It wasn't until Japan attacked the U.S. that WWII became global by an stretch. Until then, it was just a regional conflict in Europe and a second one between Japan and China.

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUU
So it was a global war that became global? Jesus Christ man. The Chinese front was just as brutal as anything in Europe or the southern Pacific. The Japanese, Germans and Italians were allied well before the start of hostilities, they simply did not coordinate as well as the western allies because of geography.

And the rest of your post simply ignores the whole goddamn Soviet Union and the Cold War, you are looking only at the small 'hot' wars that happened at the periphery of the greater east-west conflict.

Why is 50 a problem when losing the biscuit wasn't

[RichMan]

So a previous president lost the biscuit for months at a time. That is the president would have been unable to authenticate to military command that he was giving a launch order. Why was that not considered a problem? When 50 missiles going into a still usable but wacky state is?

Re:Why is 50 a problem when losing the biscuit was

[toastar]

So a previous president lost the biscuit for months at a time. That is the president would have been unable to authenticate to military command that he was giving a launch order. Why was that not considered a problem? When 50 missiles going into a still usable but wacky state is?

The president losing the launch codes is a little harder for the reds to exploit then possibly a systematic failure

Was this not the whole point?

[betterunixthanunix]

As I understand it, the entire point of the system of nuclear launch codes and the enormous system built around the nuclear arsenal is to ensure that accidental or unauthorized launches will not happen. Any failure mode of the system should result in an inability to launch -- how is that not obvious? Any other design seems to run counter to the purpose of the system itself.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any failure mode of the system should result in an inability to launch -- how is that not obvious?

Because it's wrong. Any failure mode should result in the missiles not being launched. Well handled failure modes should result in the continued ability to direct a launch. Failsafe in this case means safe from them as much as safe from yourself.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[CannonballHead]

Or at least, I hope they run good protection software.

Like ... Search and Destroy. Or Avast! Nothing like pirates for protecting nuclear warheads.

[note: this was an attempt at comedy.]

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really.
The point of the system is so that if events occur that damage the infrastructure the missiles can still launch.
For instance if nuclear missiles hit part of the country that we could still retaliate with ours.
This also includes breaks in the chain of command so that, if it came down to it, a couple of people in the missile bunker could launch the missile if systems failed and there was no available contact with higher command.

Cold war era thought, after all.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[SpinningCone]

50's era logic. at that time it would seem unlikely for someone to want to accidentally launch them. ie hack the system to cause a fake launch.

however it would be useful to prevent launch. thus giving a first strike advantage to the russians. so the failsafe is actually M.A.D

honestly i think in the cold war context that makes sense. you build it so if something goes wrong you take everyone with you and if you know your enemy has that mentality you don't effin hack their shit.

now in a more modern context with many extremest groups and no real nuclear M.A.D pal aiming at you it makes more sense to err on the side of launch failure.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[epine]

Ah, the evolution of language. In 1,278,698 I.D. use of the shift key diminished, but the point made was not lost on even the lowly four and five diggers.

It's true: the M.A.D. doctrine (by which I mean M.A.D in newspeak) inverts the risk profile of the launch-fail condition. Deterrence is like that. In oldspeak, as we used to say, "when the cat's away the mice will play". No, those strange symbols are not mouse-whisker emoticons. We used to call them delimiters, back when both ends of a sentence had one, even though not of the same kind. Yeah, it was kinda weird, now that I think about it. But it grows on you after 40,000 hours of reading 600 wpm. You get used to it, ya know?

Too bad we only have negative evidence that M.A.D. actually worked in the first place.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[Nethemas the Great]

Better than Dead Hand I suppose. But frankly I'd prefer 50 fewer nukes. Unless we're being purposefully kept in the dark, there aren't but one or two actors of concern that would respond to M.A.D. as a deterrent. The rest that concern us presently are stateless, and/or inclined towards self-sacrifice.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[Pharmboy]

Too bad we only have negative evidence that M.A.D. actually worked in the first place.

"Positive evidence" as in real mutually assured destruction? The fact that no one used nuclear weapons in any capacity outside of testing (ie: USSR/Afghanistan, US/Vietnam, etc.) clearly shows that M.A.D. worked rather well. If only the U.S. had nuclear weapons during the middle 20th century, I'm quite sure that they would have been used in other conflicts, to "save lives". M.A.D. made it so everyone must wanted nuclear weapons, but no one could use them for fear of being erased off the planet. Sounds like it worked like a charm.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[tsm_sf]

Sounds like it worked like a charm.

It almost failed catastrophically at least half a dozen times. Here's an interesting article on the guy who, although it's up for some debate, probably prevented world war three single-handedly.

The fundamental principle of MAD assumes rational and informed actors on both sides of the table. At one point we had Khrushchev sitting across from us. At one point they had Reagan.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[Pharmboy]

At one point we had Khrushchev sitting across from us. At one point they had Reagan.

Both of which I say were much more rational than given credit. One way to get your opponent to pay attention is if they think you are crazy enough to use the nuclear option. Even Obama has made it clear that it isn't off the table. And as for Reagan, I would gladly vote for him again. On the domestic side, he was the closest we have had to a libertarian president. Obviously his foreign policies were not libertarian.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[tsm_sf]

You're not remembering what condition Reagan was in when he left office. That wasn't a partisan dig, the man was unwell.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[Anonymous Coward]

[note: this was an attempt at comedy.]

(Score:4, Funny)

Only a 4? You have failed miserably.

Re:Was this not the whole point?

[tehcyder]

And as for Reagan, I would gladly vote for him again. On the domestic side, he was the closest we have had to a libertarian president

I'm not sure if that is more insulting to Regan or libertarianism.

Risky!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Risky." You need to know it's STILL RISKY. Risk we say!

Be worried. Because their is risk. Don't think about the security those nooks have provided since WW2; there was and is absolutely no "risk" that another world wide conflagration might have or will happen without those risky missiles. But those nooks! The nooks are RiSkY you fool. RISKY. Don't worry about the risk to medical capabilities in the US as we legislate someones' idea of justice into medicine, either. No risk there at all. Running up 10% of our GDP as debt every year is also clearly risk free. So you just keep worrying about the nooks! They are Risky!

Re:Risky!!

[Darkness404]

Don't think about the security those nooks have provided since WW2; there was and is absolutely no "risk" that another world wide conflagration might have or will happen without those risky missiles

Yeah "security" at what cost? The only "security" that nukes brought us was the "security" that if someone tried to completely wipe us out we could wipe them out too. That isn't security. Should it be considered security to wear a suicide vest because if someone tried to rob you, you could kill the robber?

And sure there hasn't been a world war on the scale of WWII, but for the inhabitants of countries like Vietnam and Korea where people's lives both westerners and natives alike were used as pawns in a silly game with the USSR and the US.

Nuclear weapons don't give us peace, only diplomacy can give lasting peace. If we, you know actually -talked- to nations like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc. rather than shut the two countries lines of communications we might actually achieve true peace.

I'm not saying that the rest of the things aren't risky but if I was wearing a suicide vest, the first thing I'd want to do is make sure it wasn't going to blow up on me and perhaps even take it off.

Does the US need a defense force, of course it does. Does the US need a few nuclear weapons? Quite possibly. Do we need enough nuclear weapons to wipe out every major city in Europe, South America, Europe, Africa and most of Asia? No. The more nuclear weapons we have the greater the risk is for the citizens are.

Re:Risky!!

[jpmorgan]

And the only security you have that someone isn't just going to kill you for your stuff, is that they'll probably be caught and imprisoned for it.

I don't normally resort to rudeness, but you are a naive fool. Naive because I had to explain the previous point, and a fool because you are criticizing something you don't understand.

In the event of a nuclear war between Russia and America, the first target for Russian nuclear weapons would be American nuclear weapons. If you want deterrent, you have to make sure your weapons survive the first strike. THAT is why America, and Russia, built so many nuclear weapons. Redundancy.

Re:Risky!!

[Darkness404]

And what was the reason for all this? Simple ignorance. If we had actually talked with Russia which basically saved the West's asses from Hitler and included them with our projects, sharing intelligence and the like and had closer American-Russian ties perhaps we could have avoided the entire cold war. Perhaps with the opening of relations between the two countries conditions would be better for the Russians and Americans alike.

Our current diplomatic process will lead to another war like this, only the leaders of both countries might not be sane enough to avoid nuclear war next time.

Neither Russia nor the US wanted anything from the other country other than safety. If we had avoided mutual suspicion at the end of WWII and had closer ties, perhaps both nations could have prospered and accomplished much rather than simply building more bombs.

Re:Risky!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Should it be considered security to wear a suicide vest because if someone tried to rob you, you could kill the robber?

Would you ever try to rob someone who was wearing a suicide vest? Would anyone?

Re:Risky!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know much about Joesph Stalin, do you?

Re:Risky!!

[Type44Q]

And what was the reason for all this? Simple ignorance. If we had actually talked with Russia which basically saved the West's asses from Hitler and included them with our projects, sharing intelligence and the like and had closer American-Russian ties perhaps we could have avoided the entire cold war. Perhaps with the opening of relations between the two countries conditions would be better for the Russians and Americans alike.

Riiiiggghht... it was all a misunderstanding; Stalin was actually a nice, reasonable guy beneath that genocidal exterior and would have been a walk in the park to reason with.

Re:Risky!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you noticed how much more of a shithole eastern europe and russia is compared to western europe? It isn't a coincidence. The soviets pulled off stunts comparably evil to the Nazis. I am thankful the west and particularly the USA drove them into the ground.

Re:Risky!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Diplomacy works in many cases. It does not work in all cases. Force options exist for those cases where it doesn't work. To pretend otherwise is niave.

Re:Risky!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we talking about the same Russian government that killed more of their own citizens than the Nazis killed Jews?

Neville Chamberland, is that you?

Re:Risky!!

[u38cg]

Run a small thought experiment here. Imagine for a second that Russia is not called Russia (or the USSR) and instead substitute another name, like, say, "North Korea" (I just made that up totally off the top of my head). It's still the USSR, we're just calling it North Korea. Ask your question again, substituting "North Korea" for Russia or the USSR every time it appears, and let's see if you still think the question is a good one.

Re:Risky!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Diplomacy works when the two sides can live together and simply need to negotiate their way down from some sort of standoff that is due to a misunderstanding or a mistake. I bump into you, I say "sorry" and you say "that's okay" and no punches get thrown.

Diplomacy is useless when one side has, as an important goal, domination or annihilation of the other side. I pull a knife and stab you in order to rob you - there is probably no sequence of words that can come out of your mouth that will stop me from robbing and killing you, other than "I'm a cop" or "get the hell away from me or I'll shoot you" - that is, a credible threat, backed up by a real capacity for violence.

You naively assume Soviet Russia circa 1960, and Al Qaida for that matter, could be reasoned and negotiated with, in the absence of a credible deterrent in our hands. They couldn't. They want(ed) us all dead, or enslaved.

The reason the USSR actually did negotiate with us was the nukes. Negotiation from a position of strength, even with an ideologically committed enemy, can work. But take away those nukes in 1960, and we'd all be eating vodka for breakfast today.

Re:Risky!!

[aaaaaaargh!]

Why was the above post rated funny? The OP is right. In retrospective it turned out that the USSR never intended to attack the US and that the "domino" theory which lead to proxy wars and support for atrocial dictatorships was based on a misjudgment of Soviet foreign policies. Basically, both sides were completely paranoid and built up their nuclear arsenal because they were convinced that the other side was planning a first strike, although neither of the side ever planned a first strike. This went so far as to the 1983 incident, where a joint NATO maneuver was interpreted by a vast array of Russian intelligence sources as the preparation for a massive scale nuclear attack by NATO. Oh, and let's not forget that China, who was always considered an ally by the West, was always considered a rival by the USSR.

The bottomline is: While there were insurmountable ideological differences between the East and West, most of the cold war was caused by misinterpretation of the motives of the other side and by the fact that on both sides politicians based their decisions on utterly distorted informations from the military/intelligence complex.

Re:Risky!!

[aaaaaaargh!]

The other people that have replied should study more history. After 1990, when lots of formerly classified information became available, it became clear that East and West never planned a first strike and the whole cold war was based on paranoia and misjudgment of the other side's motives. The incapability of both sides to correctly assess their opponent's motives almost lead to the complete destruction of the world when a NATO maneuver was misinterpreted as the preparation for a first strike in 1983. At all times after 1945 neither USA nor USSR intended to do a first strike, yet both sides believed the others were planning for it.

The OP is completely right, had they talked more the cold war would have been less dangerous and some of the more evil aspects of it could have been prevented. That's the historic reality and has nothing to do with the fact that Stalin was a mass murderer and not the brightest mind either.

(Or do the other posters suggest that the US should have nuked the USSR in a first strike because Stalin was such a bad guy?)

Re:Risky!!

[Erikderzweite]

I've read the protocols from Potsdam and Yalta conferences. He sure was a reasonable man as far as foreign politics goes. Even the Churchill acknowledges it. I failed to see the baby-eating monster with unlimited lust for power.
Having survived the most devastating war in the history of mankind, having fought on Russian soil against best army of the time supported up by whole European industry, Soviet government naturally wanted to have buffer states just in case next war happens. Strict Soviet control over buffer counties' governments was needed at the time because said countries were aiding Hitler during WWII, having either been occupied (Poland), surrendered without a fight (Czech Republic) or being allies (Hungary, Slovakia).

As for lust for power -- Stalin didn't insist on keeping Austria or Denmark occupied by Red Army although he could easily do so.

Keep in mind that there is a great deal of bias and outright lies about him with Soviet sources being the least reliable ones. Khrushchev has been caught using Goebbel's propaganda pamphlets as stated facts against Stalin in order to achieve his own political goals.

By today's standards, his rule was cruel, despotic and oppressive. Times and people were different back then though. Still, Russia went the whole way from being backward agrarian country torn apart by a civil war to industrial and economic power able to win a world war against whole Europe.

Re:Risky!!

[tehcyder]

But take away those nukes in 1960, and we'd all be eating vodka for breakfast today.

I'd love to know how the USSR would have managed to invade and conquer the US, even if they had wanted to.

Re:Risky!!

[tehcyder]

Should it be considered security to wear a suicide vest because if someone tried to rob you, you could kill the robber?

Would you ever try to rob someone who was wearing a suicide vest? Would anyone?

You'd just shoot them from a safe distance, obviously.

Re:Risky!!

[Darkness404]

But would that have happened if we would have negotiated, had lots of American tourists in Russia, etc.

Compare China during the "cultural revolution" to China today. Yes, China isn't perfect, but because of increased trade and cooperation with the west China has grown more and more free. I still wouldn't want to live there, but given the choice between pre-westernized China during the early part of the 20th century to China today, I would pick China today.

Russia could have experienced the same thing, a gradual weakening of the government's grip on its citizens.

Instead, Russia had to endure 40 some years of tyranny before they experienced reforms at the cost of their entire economy and way of life crashing.

Stalin was not a good leader, but that is no excuse to almost destroy the world. The cold war was based on this idea that the other side was going to nuke them to oblivion. Neither the USSR or the US wanted that. But in the US, because of crap diplomacy we thought that the USSR intended to nuke us. In the USSR due to crap diplomacy they believed the US wanted to nuke them into oblivion. If we had diplomacy we could have diffused that problem and made the world a safer place. We might have even stopped slaughters like Vietnam, we might have diffused the Korean war thus preventing North Korea from forming, etc.

Re:Risky!!

[painandgreed]

Why was the above post rated funny? The OP is right. In retrospective it turned out that the USSR never intended to attack the US and that the "domino" theory which lead to proxy wars and support for atrocial dictatorships was based on a misjudgment of Soviet foreign policies.

Not quite. While they were not considering first strike, they were still planning for the enevitable war with the West. However, due to their political theories, capitalists countries like the US and Britain could not co-exist because they would fight over natural resources. They then planned to step in after we had beat each other up. However, capitalist theory changed after WW2 and rather than colonial fighting over natural resources, it was about opening up markets because their was more money to be made selling stuff to other countries than stripping them of natural resources for the home country.

They were offered the olive branch back under Carter in an effort to let them back off the build up and get their economy into shape. They responded with the invasion of Afghanistan while the US was unable to respond even if we wanted to. Thus ushering in Reagan and his solution to instead ramp up the arms race till the USSR bankrupted itself.

So, why didn't it happen the way we've been told?

[Just_Say_Duhhh]

Once the power was cut, the missiles were supposed to interpret that as an attack, and carry out their last orders (launch toward Russia, North Korea, and David Hasselhof). So why aren't we sitting in a post-apocalyptic wasteland right now? I want an inquiry started immediately!

It wasn't a "power failure"...

[MaggieL]

Obviously more fact checking is needed.

And yes, the system is designed to be able to launch even if an attack (or something else) has damaged part of the system. You know, like "the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it"?

It's called "redundancy". Would you want a weapon system that is disabled by any damage that might occur? Like in a war?

Re:It wasn't a "power failure"...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the space brothers. Our galactic family is reminding us that we are all one brotherhood on planet earth and need to peacefully and lovingly help each other. Violence and nuclear weapons are not the answer to our problems. Going forward we need to think globally, not as a small tribe of individual nation states. They repeatedly down nuclear facilities in the USA, Russia, and China sending a message that we will not be allowed to nuke ourselves out of existence.

Re:It wasn't a "power failure"...

[polar red]

peacefully and lovingly help each other.

Die you commie !

Re:It wasn't a "power failure"...

[rogeroger]

In case you missed it, a press conference was held on Sept 27 to focus media attention on decades of UFO interference with U.S. military nuclear weapons installations. UFO researcher Robert Hastings and former U.S. Air Force Captain Robert Salas organized the conference, which included presentations made by seven former USAF personnel. Roughly two dozen media representatives attended the press conference, which CNN streamed live. Read more: http://technorati.com/technology/article/redefining-consensus-reality-american-medias-coverage/#ixzz13hP4lX00

Re:So, why didn't it happen the way we've been tol

[Sponge Bath]

So why aren't we sitting in a post-apocalyptic wasteland right now?

Have you been to Detroit recently?

Telemetry program are written in...

[GPLDAN]

Logo! (Who knew?)

to spiral :size
if :size > 30 [stop] ; an exit condition
fd :size rt 15 ; many lines of action
spiral :size *1.02 ; the tailend recursive call
end

Ability to launch

[Anonymous Coward]

'at no time did the president's ability [to launch] decrease.'

That's true. The ability to launch was non-existent before, during, and after this incident.

Re:Ability to launch

[Darkness404]

As it should be.

This idea that we need to launch 34423423423423 missiles as fast as possible is based on laughable ignorance.

No one person, be it the president, vice president, speaker of the house, a general, a soldier, etc. should be able to launch a nuclear weapon.

It should have to go through multiple people to determine whether or not to launch it and then let people state their reasons then finally come to an agreement.

Do we want a situation like the Cuban missile crisis again where one person had the ability to save the world or end it?

Re:Ability to launch

[Q-Hack!]

Wooosh!

Re:So, why didn't it happen the way we've been tol

[ettlz]

Have you been to Detroit recently?

Does that count as post-apocalyptic?

Re:So, why didn't it happen the way we've been tol

[Anonymous Coward]

So why aren't we sitting in a post-apocalyptic wasteland right now? I want an inquiry started immediately!

Who needs an inquiry? Just fire up Fallout: New Vegas :)

Assuaging fears

[Anonymous Coward]

How about assuaging fears that an accident, misunderstanding, systems failure (early warning / launch / other), or psycho with access blows us all up for nothing.

Who could possibly think it would be better to be dead (and possibly exterminate most life on this planet) than to be a subject of yet another corrupt government-- with few exceptions, most nations are more free than the U.S. anyway.

Re:Assuaging fears

[Anonymous Coward]

With few exceptions, most nations are more free than the U.S. anyway.

Free in what way? At least the US government isn't playing big brother and spying on all it's citizens (yet.) You can even own firearms and keep them at your home in the US. It seems like most European governments are afraid of their citizens so they have been slowly stripping them of their rights to privacy and self-defense for years.

Re:Assuaging fears

[tehcyder]

With few exceptions, most nations are more free than the U.S. anyway.

Free in what way? At least the US government isn't playing big brother and spying on all it's citizens (yet.) You can even own firearms and keep them at your home in the US. It seems like most European governments are afraid of their citizens so they have been slowly stripping them of their rights to privacy and self-defense for years.

As an American, you can own as many guns as you want, if the police/army come knocking you will still have to go with them or be killed yourself. You can shoot a dozen cops, their colleagues are not going to say "oh, that guy's a real hard case, we'd better not arrest him after all".

Re:So, why didn't it happen the way we've been tol

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I want my Fallout perks !

Canard.

[blair1q]

"risky designs that favor the ability to launch"

There are multiple safeguards built into the system that have to be released in order to launch even one missile. None of the safeguards are coupled, meaning that there is no cascading effect. Each one has different inputs and a different means to activate it.

One of the simplest is that it takes the near-simultaneous activation of two mechanical, key-locked switches to send the fire command to the missile, and these are separated by enough distance that one person can't do it alone. And it only gets to that point after a number of other manual steps have been taken to prep the launch.

Even the President's order is not sufficient to start everything rolling. The people in charge of monitoring the threat systems go to him to ask for authorization. He doesn't go to them - they'd never believe him if he did, since there's no way he'd know there was a threat. And they don't make their decision lightly.

At the point where it's necessary to launch a nuke, it will be blindingly clear to everyone that we should have made the process simpler, not that it is too simple.

Re:Canard.

[Anonymous Coward]

At the point where it's necessary to launch a nuke,

And that time is now! We must preserve the purity and essence of our natural fluids. How can anyone not understand this?

Re:Canard.

[the linux geek]

That's incorrect. National Command Authority, composed of the President and the Secretary of Defense, can order a nuclear strike anywhere, at any time, for any purpose. The military "never believing him" would be blatant insubordination.

Re:Canard.

[Anonymous Coward]

> One of the simplest is that it takes the near-simultaneous activation of two mechanical, key-locked switches to send the fire command to the missile, and these are separated by enough distance that one person can't do it alone

No. You have been reading/believing too much propaganda. One person can do it alone. He cannot do it *with his hands and no other simple devices* alone, but he can do it alone very easily.

What you say about "never believe" is also incorrect. But I see you got modded up to '5 informative' anyway; things don't have to be correct to get that on slashdot, they just have to sound good.

Re:Canard.

[Anonymous Coward]

you speak as though you are an authority on the nuclear command and control protocols of the united states.
you haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about.
us strategic defense is possibly the most heavily engineered solution that man has ever created. the amount of man-hours that mathematicians and engineers have invested into developing the system is staggering.

just ponder the possibility that your paper-thin "knowledge" on the idiosyncracies of the most secret and complex enterprise the world's most powerful nation engages in might not function the way you think it does.

Re:Canard.

[jpmorgan]

Even the President's order is not sufficient to start everything rolling. The people in charge of monitoring the threat systems go to him to ask for authorization. He doesn't go to them - they'd never believe him if he did, since there's no way he'd know there was a threat. And they don't make their decision lightly.

The US does not have an unconditional no-first-strike policy.

Re:Canard.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what we here in the US call "negotiation from a position of strength".

Re:Canard.

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the simplest is that it takes the near-simultaneous activation of two mechanical, key-locked switches to send the fire command to the missile, and these are separated by enough distance that one person can't do it alone. And it only gets to that point after a number of other manual steps have been taken to prep the launch.

Not only that, with Minuteman systems a key turn by both the commander and deputy in a launch control center doesn't directly launch the 10 missiles they are in charge of; instead their key turns are registered as a launch "vote" within their squadron. The 50 missiles in the squadron do not actually receive the launch command until at least two of the five launch control centers in the squadron submit launch votes within a second or two of each other. This both prevents any of the launch control centers from individually launching their flight of missiles and allows for all enabled missiles in the squadron to be launched by just two launch control centers if the others are put out of action.

Re:Canard.

[Anonymous Coward]

And those key switches are just electrical connectors behind a panel secured by ordinary phillips-head screws. It doesn't take a genius to see that with a screwdriver and some wire those 'widely separated keys' are just theater.

AC

Re:Canard.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it will be necessary any day now, as it has been for the past sixty-five years. :)

Re:Canard.

[tehcyder]

No. You have been reading/believing too much propaganda. One person can do it alone. He cannot do it *with his hands and no other simple devices* alone, but he can do it alone very easily.

But that would be cheating!

Re:Canard.

[blair1q]

Where is it incorrect?

You need the POTUS and SECDEF concurring. SECDEF is the one who tells POTUS we're under attack. If POTUS went to SECDEF and said "launch a nuke", SECDEF would look at POTUS and go "what the fuck?"

There's also the matter of illegal orders. The military personnel all the way down the chain to the jolly, candy-like buttons are responsible for knowing that what they are doing is not illegal, and for refusing to do it if it is.

If we're not under attack, or Congress has not authorized war, tossing nukes at other nations - or our own - is murder, hence illegal.

If we are under attack, or there is reason to go to war, everyone in the chain will know it and be in place to carry out their mission by the time POTUS is asked by SECDEF to authorize it.

We're not going to wake up some morning to find that we've nuked Canada because the Commander in Chief was sleep-talking in nuclear authorization codes to an evil Secretary of Defense.

It's Obama's fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

he didn't play the utility bill.

nuclearrisk.org

[Pope Raymond Lama]

I've been foloowing this blog/news site over the past months -- it exposes the danger of thenuclear arsenals in qa quite rational way - and the way to address it is just giving more exposure to these rational dangers, sot hat people demand dismantling nuclear weapons over time.

It is certainly worth a look - and an rss feed to follow! http://nuclearrisk.org/

Re:nuclearrisk.org

[CannonballHead]

Interesting... but... also interesting: we've had several nuclear power plant problems. Have we ever had an accidental nuclear bomb explosion?

(I actually support nuclear power, by the way.)

Re:nuclearrisk.org

[Pope Raymond Lama]

Well - taht is the base for the author site risk assesment:
While almost everyone would have an issue with living close to a nuclear ower plant, the risk of the M.A.D. policy uiis equivalent to that several times over, and no one cares.

Re:nuclearrisk.org

[tehcyder]

Interesting... but... also interesting: we've had several nuclear power plant problems. Have we ever had an accidental nuclear bomb explosion?

I don't think it's something that would have gone unnoticed, somehow...

Re:nuclearrisk.org

[CannonballHead]

My point is that we've had fewer accidental bomb issues than power plant issues... so technically, they're somewhat correct in fearing the plants more than bombs. Of course, that could be because we haven't been allowed to build many since the 70s :P

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hmmm... not MS software I hope

[plopez]

Hmmm.... troll. Just making a comment.

Utter tripe

[onyxruby]

The entire point of such systems is to ensure that a launch can occur despite a given failure, but only if authorized to do so. The concept of MAD (the most succesfull peace plan in history) is entirely depenant upon the ability to launch even in the advent of other failures. This was a technical failure and the backup processes and systems all worked as designed. No missle somehow got a launch order and no missle lost the ability to launch if needed. The entire story is hyperbole fearmongering.

reassured????

[bickerdyke]

I am in definitly NO WAY feeling more secure knowing that ICBMs can be launched even with their safeguards down!

Re:reassured????

[gnieboer]

Their safeguards were never down. -A- safeguard was down. HUGE difference.

Right in the middle of a real launch

[mlawrence]

The screen goes black and white letters appear: ? SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 10240

Not favoring danger of accidental launch is bad?

[noidentity]

The history of nuclear command and control systems has too many examples of risky designs that favor the ability to launch over the danger of an accidental one."

Isn't it a good thing that the designs don't favor the danger of an accidental launch? Or do you also donate to groups that support cancer?

Re:Why is 50 a problem when losing the biscuit was

[pixelpusher220]

Clinton never lost the biscuit. Did you see his waistline? ;-)

Seriously though, Clinton didn't lose anything, his aide lost the codes but not the football itself (guess I'm assuming there's more to the football than just a folder of codes). The aide then covered that fact up for months before anyone checking on him bothered to do more than take his word for it.

But Clinton was in no way involved in the loss or cover up of the situation.

I sense a disconnect

[Un pobre guey]

'various security protocols built into the missile delivery system, like intrusion alarms and warhead separation alarms, were offline.'
'at no time did the president's ability [to launch] decrease.'

Were there any intruders? Were any warheads separated from their launch vehicles? I know, I know. I should RTFA.

Citation needed

[DerekLyons]

From the summary: The history of nuclear command and control systems has too many examples of risky designs that favor the ability to launch over the danger of an accidental one.

[[Citation Needed]]

Seriously - because the claim quoted above is not supported in either of the linked articles. In fact, the citations show precisely the *opposite* - as the PALs were specifically intended to reduce the ability to launch in favor of reducing the risk of accidental launch. That they were improperly used is an operational flaw, not a design flaw. (A difference roughly as subtle as a baseball bat upside the head - and that the writers are unaware of this is a sure and certain sign they aren't qualified to write on the topic.)

The writer of the article cited above further compounds his error by using a situation from over three decades ago as 'proof' that a problem exists today - a situation which his own quote shows to no longer exist.

Re:Citation needed

[winwar]

"In fact, the citations show precisely the *opposite* - as the PALs were specifically intended to reduce the ability to launch in favor of reducing the risk of accidental launch. That they were improperly used is an operational flaw, not a design flaw."

If so, then the distinction between an operational flaw and a design flaw is a distinction without a difference. Or at least one without significance. If a system designed to prevent something from happening can be easily subverted when implemented as designed then it has a huge design flaw. It assumed (and required) that basic security practices would be followed (unique combinations). If this was not followed, it was worthless. This was by design.

Re:Citation needed

[cmowire]

Yeah, I'm under-impressed with the site's rigorousness as well. Everything the author talks about is something that's been talked about endlessly in the public literature. With the claims made, I kept thinking there was at least a rumor-mongering hint about something new and different.

Re:Citation needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if hte same organizatio nis designing and operating the missiles. However, they are designed and operated by two different organizations. The Air Force, like every large, bloated beauracracy, is hardly a monolightic entity.

Re:Citation needed

[DerekLyons]

If so, then the distinction between an operational flaw and a design flaw is a distinction without a difference. Or at least one without significance.

Um, no. It's the difference between using a screwdriver to drive a screw - or to stab someone. It's a huge difference.
 

If a system designed to prevent something from happening can be easily subverted when implemented as designed then it has a huge design flaw.

Um, no. The system was designed to have a combination stored in it, and then have that combination entered in order to generate the launch signal. The system worked precisely as designed. If what you say is true, then there is almost no such thing as a secure lockout device - because keys can always be left in locks, terminals left logged in, etc... etc... (Or less kindly, you're either discussing a fantasy world disconnected from the real world of engineering and security - or you're smarter than thousands of engineers and security professionals across decades. I know which way I'd bet.)
 

It assumed (and required) that basic security practices would be followed (unique combinations).

Duh. And guess what - security procedures are *operations*, not *designs*. If you can't tell the difference, you just prove my point.

Re:Why is 50 a problem when losing the biscuit was

[slick7]

The president losing the launch codes is a little harder for the reds to exploit then possibly a systematic failure

Unless it was the reds that "founf" the biscuit. They don't actually have to use it, all they have to do is put it into play. The time necessary to disregard, authenticate a new code is longer than a missle launch. Which is why the US nuclear threat is three pronged, land, sea, and air. The only missles that do not need a Permissive Action Link are sea launched, surface or sub-surface.

Re:Hmmm... not MS software I hope

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the receptionist for example uses Windows on its PC. Probably used throughout the facility. Probably also use Exchange for email, because it's better than anything else if cost is not a concern. They probably also use Word and Excel.

What's your point? You can't make a single point here that won't come off as a troll. Hence the mod.

Re:Why is 50 a problem when losing the biscuit was

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need the code to launch the missiles. You need to codes to tell the people that launch the missiles you are who you say you are.

Launch unlikely anyway

[danpat]

There's an interesting talk given by Richard Rhodes a couple of months ago discussing the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons:

http://foratv.vo.llnwd.net/o33/rss/Long_Now_Podcasts/podcast-2010-09-21-rhodes.mp3

In a nutshell, it probably doesn't matter if they were offline, they're unlikely ever going to get used.

Listen to the talk for some interesting takes on the "mutually assured destruction" situation.

Yes, ask any dog.

[pslam]

Then they worked, and are continuing to work.

Dog barks at postman. Postman comes and goes away. Dog keeps barking at postman every day. Seems to work.

Re:Yes, ask any dog.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's -
Dog barks at robber. Robber goes somewhere else. Good dog.

Re:Yes, ask any dog.

[operagost]

I guarantee you that if the dog were to bite the postman twice, you would no longer get any mail until the situation was rectified (see: Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

My car wouldn't start today.

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I now have to be concerned about it spontaneously starting, driving away, and crashing into a bus load of orphaned nuns.

Incorrect premise

[PiMuNu]

The whole article is based on the premise that EITHER you have risk of accidental launch EX-OR you have risk of failure to launch deliberately. That patently isn't true and you can make trivial example code to show that this is the case.

Amusingly Enough Under the Brit Sys this is Legal

[realxmp]

Whilst in the British system the Prime Minister would give the order for a strike he is not in law the commander in chief of our armed forces the Queen is. In normal day-to-day military operations, this is ignored as the PM's commands are deemed as coming from her. If however the Chief of Defence Staff responsible for passing the order to the troups thought the prime minster issuing the order was "stark raving mad", he would be within his rights to refuse it as contrary to the Queen's wishes. Essentially the PM has positive power of authorisation and the CDS has negative power to veto.

2 out of 3 ain't that bad, right ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting
1 - Intrusion detection offline
2 - Warhead separation offline

Improbable to the point of impossibility
A.1 - Exchanging warhead(s) with dud replica(s) (including clumps of radioactives inside).
A.2 - All involved being more interested in covering their asses than in discovering the truth.

3 - ... profit ? Doom ? 3rd-worlding empires shouldn't play with knives, let alone nukes ?

Half-bridges. On foggy nights.

Re:So, why didn't it happen the way we've been tol

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but I'd buy that for a dollar!

"nuclear deterrent might have been compromised"?

[SheeEttin]

Assuaging fears that America's nuclear deterrent might have been compromised during this failure, the source article notes that the missiles still could be launched from airborne command centers.

See, thing is, unless the system was taken offline by an enemy for the express purpose of disabling the nukes, when they go down nobody knows about it. So, it doesn't really hurt the deterrent, now does it?