A reader who has gotten this far into the book may be wondering if all this policy talk really matters.
1 Treaties, agreements, dialogues, debates—who cares? Didn’t the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War mark the end of the nuclear threat? Nothing could be further from the truth. There are multiple nuclear nightmares still out there. On any given day, we could wake up to a crisis that threatens our country, our region, our planet. If we ignore these nuclear nightmares, we do so at our peril.
The nuclear age is now in its seventh decade. For most of these years, citizens and officials lived with the constant fear that long-range bombers and ballistic missiles would bring instant, total destruction to the United States, the Soviet Union, many other nations, and, perhaps, the entire planet. In 1957, Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel, On the Beach, portrayed the terror of survivors as they awaited the radioactive clouds drifting toward Australia from a Northern Hemisphere nuclear war. There were then some 7,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with the U.S. stockpile outnumbering the Soviet Union’s ten to one.
By the 1980s, the nuclear danger had grown to grotesque proportions. When Jonathan Schell’s chilling book, The Fate of the Earth, was published in 1982, there were then almost 60,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled with a destructive force equal to roughly 20,000 megatons (20 billion tons) of TNT, or over 1 million times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. President Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” antimissile system was originally intended to defeat a first-wave attack of some 5,000 Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 missile warheads streaking over the North Pole. “These bombs,” Schell wrote, “were built as ‘weapons’ for ‘war,’ but their significance greatly transcends war and all its causes and outcomes. They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man.”2
The threat of a global thermonuclear war today is low. The treaties negotiated in the 1980s, particularly the START agreements, which began the reductions in U.S. and Soviet strategic arsenals, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear-tipped missiles, began a process that accelerated with the end of the Cold War. Between 1992 and 2012, the nuclear weapons carried by long-range U.S. and Russian missiles and bombers decreased by 74 percent.
3 And the number of all the nuclear weapons in the world (short- and long-range, deployed and nondeployed) has been cut by almost three-quarters, from a Cold War high of more than 65,056 in 1986 to about 17,200 as of March 2013. What has not changed is the concentration of these weapons. The United States and Russia at the beginning of 2013 had over 95 percent of all these weapons, or about 16,200, with seven other countries holding the remaining 1,000 or so.
4
These are not mere statistical musings. We came much closer to Armageddon after the Cold War ended than many realize. In January 1995, a global nuclear war almost started by mistake. Russian military officials mistook a Norwegian weather rocket for a U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missile. Boris Yeltsin became the first Russian president to ever have the “nuclear suitcase” open in front of him. He had just a few minutes to decide if he should push the button that would launch a barrage of nuclear missiles. We believe his senior military officials advised him that he had to launch. Thankfully, he concluded that his radars were in error. The suitcase was closed.
Such a scenario could repeat today. The presidents of Russia and the United States are still followed everywhere they go by an aide carrying a suitcase (or the “football” as the White House calls it) with the codes and communications that could launch Armageddon. The Cold War is over, but the Cold War weapons remain. And so do the Cold War postures that keep thousands of these weapons on hair-trigger alert, ready to launch in under fifteen minutes. As of January 2013, the active U.S. stockpile contains nearly 4,650 nuclear warheads. About 1,950 of them are deployed atop Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles based in Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota; the rest are deployed in a fleet of fourteen nuclear-powered Trident submarines that patrol the Pacific, Atlantic, and Artic oceans and at air force bases housing the long-range B-2 bombers in Missouri and the B-52s in North Dakota and Louisiana (see table 4.1). The United States also has approximately 3,000 intact warheads in storage awaiting dismantlement, for a total inventory of some 7,700 warheads.
Russia has more than 4,500 warheads in its active stockpile, with 2,484 atop its SS-18, SS-19, SS-25, and SS-27 missiles deployed in silos in six missile fields arrayed between Moscow and Siberia (Kozelsk, Tatishchevo, Uzhur, Dombarovskiy, Kartalay, and Aleysk); on eleven nuclear-powered Delta submarines that conduct limited patrols with the Northern and Pacific fleets from three naval bases (Nerpich’ya, Yagel’Naya and Rybachiy); and on Bear and Blackjack bombers stationed at Ukrainka and Engels air bases (see
table 4.2). Russia also retains an estimated 4,000 intact warheads in storage awaiting dismantlement, for a total stockpile of some 8,500 weapons.
5
Though the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Russian and American presidents now call each other friends, Washington and Moscow continue to maintain and modernize these huge nuclear arsenals. In July 2007, just before President Vladimir Putin of Russia vacationed with President George W. Bush at the Bush home in Kennebunkport, Maine, Russia successfully tested a new submarine-based missile. In operation, the missile would carry six nuclear warheads and could travel more than 6,000 miles; that is, it is designed to strike targets in the United States, including, almost certainly, targets in the very state of Maine that Putin visited. For his part, President Bush’s administration adopted a nuclear posture that included plans to produce new types of weapons; begin development of a new generation of nuclear missiles, submarines, and bombers; and expand the U.S. nuclear weapons complex so that it could produce thousands of new warheads on demand. President Barack Obama, as noted in previous chapters, has updated this strategy, but it still retains many of the nuclear-war-fighting aspects that could lead, by intention, miscalculation, or accident, to a thermonuclear exchange.
Examples of crises provided by Lewis, who also edits the popular blog
ArmsControlWonk.org include:
![image](images/common.png)
Several accidents involving B-52s armed with nuclear weapons that crashed in 1962 (Goldsboro, North Carolina), 1966 (Palomares, Spain), and 1968 (Thule, Greenland). “After the third crash, the Air Force finally figured out that it’s a terrible idea to keep nuclear armed bombers in the air at all times.”
![image](images/common.png)
A 1958 incident where a B-47 crew accidentally dropped a hydrogen bomb that landed near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina—and exploded. “Fortunately, only the high explosives detonated. But the impact crater can still be seen today.”
![image](images/common.png)
Three different false alarms from June 3 to June 6, 1980, caused by new software and a faulty forty-six-cent computer chip that failed in NORAD headquarters that “showed different Soviet attacks from one moment to the next,” alarming “many officials in the Carter administration.”
![image](images/common.png)
A 1956 bomber crash at Lakenheath Air Base in Britain where a B-47 plowed into nuclear weapons storage “igloos,” killing the crew and scattering Mark Six nuclear warheads. General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command, cabled back home: “Preliminary exam by bomb disposal officer says a miracle that one Mark Six with exposed detonators didn’t go off.”
![image](images/common.png)
A 2007 incident where “a weapons crew at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota mistakenly loaded six nuclear-armed cruise missiles onto a B-52 bomber, which then flew the nuclear weapons across the country to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The nuclear weapons were unsecured for 36 hours.” Crew in Barksdale eventually noticed that the missiles hanging from the bomber’s wings were nuclear, not conventional, weapons. Officials at Minot did not know the weapons were missing until the alarmed officers in Louisiana notified them.
Blair describes the scenario in dry but chilling detail:
If early warning satellites or ground radar detected missiles in flight, both sides would attempt to assess whether a real nuclear attack was under way within a strict and short deadline. Under Cold War procedures that are still in practice today, early warning crews manning their consoles 24/7 have only three minutes to reach a preliminary conclusion. Such occurrences happen on daily basis, sometimes more than once per day. If an apparent nuclear missile threat is perceived, then an emergency teleconference would be convened between the American/Russian President and his top nuclear advisers. On the U.S side, the top officer on duty at Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb., would brief the president on his nuclear options and their consequences. That officer is allowed all of 30 seconds to deliver the briefing.
Then the U.S or Russian president would have to decide whether to retaliate, and since the command systems on both sides have long been geared for launch-on-warning, the presidents would have little spare time if they desired to get retaliatory nuclear missiles off the ground before they—and possibly the presidents themselves—were vaporized. On the U.S side, the time allowed to decide would range between zero and 12 minutes, depending on the scenario. Russia operates under even tighter deadlines because of the short flight time of U.S. Trident submarine missiles on forward patrol in the North Atlantic.
8
As Blair concludes, “Such rapid implementation of war plans leaves no room for real deliberation, rational thought, or national leadership.”
10 Former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn agrees: “We are running the irrational risk of an Armageddon of our own making.… The more time the United States and Russia build into our process for ordering a nuclear strike the more time is available to gather data, to exchange information, to gain perspective, to discover an error, to avoid an accidental or unauthorized launch.”
11
U.S. NUCLEAR FORCES
As of early 2013, the active U.S. stockpile contained approximately 4,650 nuclear warheads. This included about 2,150 deployed warheads: 1,950 strategic warheads and 200 nonstrategic warheads, including cruise missiles and bombs. Approximately 2,650 additional warheads were held in the reserve or inactive/responsive stockpiles or awaiting dismantlement.
NAME/TYPE |
LAUNCHERS |
WARHEADS |
ICBMs |
450 |
500 |
SLBMs |
288 |
1,152 |
Bombers |
113 |
300 |
Total Strategic Weapons |
851 |
~1,950 |
Tomahawk cruise missile |
0 |
0 |
B-61-3, -4 bombs |
N/A |
200 |
Total Nonstrategic Weapons |
N/A |
200 |
Total deployed weapons |
1,702 |
~2,150 |
Total non-deployed weapons |
|
~2,500 |
Total retired awaiting dismantlement |
|
~3,000 |
Total Nuclear Weapons |
|
~7,700 |
Source: Hans M. Kristensen, “US Nuclear Forces,” in SIPRI Yearbook (Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2013), 286.
As of March 2013, Russia had approximately 4,500 operational nuclear warheads in its active arsenal. This included about 2,484 operational strategic warheads and approximately 2,000 nonstrategic warheads, including artillery, short-range rockets, and landmines. An additional 4,000 warheads were believed to be in reserve or awaiting dismantlement, for a total Russian stockpile of approximately 8,500 nuclear warheads.12
GLOBAL ARSENALS
NAME/TYPE |
LAUNCHERS |
WARHEADS |
CBMs |
326 |
1,050 |
SLBMs |
160 |
624 |
Bombers |
72 |
810 |
Total Strategic Weapons |
558 |
2,484 |
Total Nonstrategic Weapons |
|
~2,000 |
Total Active Weapons |
|
~4,500 |
Total Retired Weapons |
|
~4,000 |
Total Nuclear Weapons |
|
~8,500 |
Note: Russia has approximately 2,484 strategic warheads assigned to 558 launchers. However, because several nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines are in overhaul and do not carry their allocated missiles and warheads, and bombers under normal conditions are not loaded with nuclear weapons, approximately 1,490 of Russia’s strategic warheads are deployed on 434 operational missiles. Russia’s nonstrategic weapons are said to be in central storage. The number of ICBN launchers is up slightly from the 322 in 2012 because some assumed SS-25 retirements did not occur. The number of SLBM launchers is higher than the 144 from 2012 because the Borei SSBN entered service.
Source: Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, “NRDC Nuclear Notebook, Russian Nuclear Forces, 2013,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, forthcoming.
Four countries have nuclear weapons programs but are not members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty: India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea (which joined then left the NPT). Israel has a nondeclaratory policy, meaning it does not officially acknowledge or deny its nuclear weapons; however, it is widely estimated that the country possesses 80 to 100 nuclear weapons deployed on land-based missiles and aircraft.
16 There is also a high probability that their fleet of three submarines is armed with nuclear-capable cruise missiles.
17
India and Pakistan both have rapidly growing arsenals. Based on the amount of plutonium it has produced, Kristensen and Norris estimate India has 80–100 warheads. India can deploy nuclear weapons on missiles and bombers and is expected to have an operational nuclear-armed submarine within a decade.
18 Similarly, Pakistan is also estimated to have between 90–110 warheads on a range of missiles and bombers. Both arsenals are examined in more detail in
chapter 8.
Finally, North Korea has tested three nuclear devices; however, there are no signs of operational delivery vehicles, despite the regime’s claims to have intercontinental ballistic missiles that could bring “a sea of fire” down on the United States, and no publicly available information that the nation has operationalized its nuclear devices.
19 The tests in late 2012 indicated that North Korea has made progress in both its missile and weapon capabilities. The nation may have enough material for between three and ten nuclear weapons. Iran is often mentioned as having nuclear weapons, but it does not. The best available intelligence is that Iran is constructing facilities that could allow it to build nuclear weapons, but it has not yet made a decision to do so. It would likely take Iran two to three years to produce an operational nuclear warhead that could fit on a missile. The programs in Iran and North Korea are explored further in
chapter 10.
United States |
7,700 |
Russia |
8,500 |
France |
300 |
China |
240 |
United Kingdom |
225 |
Pakistan |
90–110 |
India |
80–100 |
Israel |
|
TOTAL |
~17,200 |
The strategic challenges we face are daunting and we may end up with small nuclear arsenals rather than attain the global-zero landmark. But even that would be a much safer world than the one we live in now. If we fail to work together to achieve nuclear disarmament, the world we are heading towards—bristling with nuclear-weapons states, with more nuclear weapons, and the ever-present threat of nuclear terrorism—is even more fraught with danger.
21
Whether we can move steadily toward that world depends, in part, on how seriously nations calculate the threat from the existing arsenals. That is the subject of the next chapter.