On Avoiding Nuclear War

Gary North - June 01, 2016

This is from Wikipedia:

Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (30 January 1926 -- 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Navy officer who prevented a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only Arkhipov, as Flotilla commander and second-in-command of the nuclear-armed submarine B-59, refused to authorize the captain's use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision requiring the agreement of all three senior officers aboard. In 2002 Thomas Blanton, who was then director of the National Security Archive, said that "a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world".

This is also from Wikipedia:

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (born 1939 in Vladivostok) is a retired lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces.

On September 26, 1983, just three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile, followed by another one and then up to five more, were being launched from the United States. Petrov judged the report to be a false alarm, and his decision is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in large-scale nuclear war. Investigation later confirmed that the satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned.

There may be other men such as these two, whose stories have not gotten into Wikipedia.

Then there is this.

The nuclear football (also known as the atomic football, the president's emergency satchel, the button, the black box, or just the football) is a briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States to authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room. It functions as a mobile hub in the strategic defense system of the United States.

According to a Washington Post article, the president is always accompanied by a military aide carrying a "football" with launch codes for nuclear weapons. The football is a metal Zero Halliburton briefcase carried in a black leather "jacket". The package weighs around 45 pounds (20 kilograms). A small antenna protrudes from the bag near the handle. . . .

If the president (who is commander-in-chief) decided to order the use of nuclear weapons, they would be taken aside by the "carrier" and the briefcase opened. A command signal, or "watch" alert, would then be issued to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president would then review the attack options with the aide and decide on a plan, which could range from a single cruise missile to multiple ICBM launches. These are preset war plans developed under OPLAN 8010 (formerly the Single Integrated Operational Plan). Then, using whatever communications technology the satchel contains, the aide would presumably make contact with the National Military Command Center or, in a retaliatory strike situation, multiple airborne command posts (who likely fly Boeing E-4Bs) and/or nuclear-armed submarines.

Before the order can be processed by the military, the president must be positively identified using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the "biscuit". The United States has a two-man rule in place, and while only the president can order the release of nuclear weapons, the order must be confirmed by the Secretary of Defense (there is a hierarchy of succession in the event that the president is killed in an attack). Once all the codes have been verified, the military would issue attack orders to the proper units. These orders are given and then re-verified for authenticity.

The clock is ticking. This is the strategic issue of decision time. How much time? Maybe 25 minutes after missile launch detection.

The following flight phases can be distinguished:

boost phase: 3 to 5 minutes. . . .

midcourse phase: approx. 25 minutes--sub-orbital spaceflight. . . .

reentry phase (starting at an altitude of 100 km, 62 mi): 2 minutes. . . .

ICBMs usually use the trajectory which optimizes range for a given amount of payload (the minimum-energy trajectory); an alternative is a depressed trajectory, which allows less payload, shorter flight time, and has a much lower apogee.

"Don't dawdle, Mr. President. Punt the football."

Boom. End of the modern division of labor.

These are the ways to avoid nuclear war:

1. Back off on confrontations with Russia.
2. Deploy the strategic defense initiative ("Star Wars") with mini-nukes to maximize accuracy.
3. Maintain a plausible post-first-strike retaliation system.

Problem: ICBM's in silos are first-strike targets and guaranteed death traps. They are useless as deterrents. They are run using 8-inch floppy disk technology.

The Russians have a solution: missiles on rails. We cannot take them out in a first strike.

SLOWER IS BETTER

Over 35 years ago, I spoke with a former SAC pilot. Here is what he told me. If we had a rail-based system of cheap cruise missiles, operating at subsonic speeds, with each armed with a nuclear warhead, these missiles could not be taken out in a first strike.

In a second-strike response, they would be unstoppable. There would be too many of them to shoot down.

Their great advantage: they would be defensive only. They would not be first-strike weapons: too slow. Thus, they would not constitute an offensive first-strike threat to the Russians or the Chinese.

Best of all, they would require no rapid decision by a President. If a suspected Russian missile launch took place, and it turned out to be a mistaken identification -- a Petrov incident -- the President could order them recalled. "Oops!" They would not call forth a Russian second-strike response. That is because they are slow.

The silo-based ICBM's should be replaced. They are for a President with a fast trigger finger, or more accurately, a fast punting foot.

B-52's are slow. Submarines are slow. ICBM's are fast. Their speed is a strategic liability.

We need to slow down the President's response time. Also Putin's.