Duck and Cover

Getting weary of such ripped-from-the-headlines fears as bioterror and airline hijackings? This article from the New York Press will bring a pleasing frisson of nostalgia for old fears, like a planet-destroying U.S./Russian nuke exchange. The story is very long. Here are some excerpts that sum up its various contentions:

Against a backdrop of nuclear proliferation, both Russia and the U.S. continue to maintain and refine their own arsenals. They are also lowering the thresholds for their use. As Washington pushes forward with missile defense and a bonus round of NATO expansion, Russian generals are bristling, while Russia?s command and control system continues to deteriorate, increasing the chance that misjudgment, error or sabotage could trigger a missile launch against, say, New York City, which is still targeted for a couple hundred megatons. According to those analysts who never took their eyes off the nuclear threat, the danger of a missile exchange between U.S. and Russia is actually greater today than during the more stable periods of the Cold War.

Last week, Russia held a wide-ranging exercise simulating a nuclear war with America. Old Soviet Tu-160 strategic bombers launched cruise missiles over the North Atlantic and ICBMs were tested over Russia?s far northern region. Military satellites were launched under simulation battlefield conditions, and Russia?s beleaguered early warning system was put through the ringer.
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Call it the dirty little open secret of nuclear planning: Neither Russia nor the U.S. ever stopped viewing preparation for war against the other as the central organizing principle of its nuclear policy. February?s extensive war game wasn?t Russia?s first such drill since the end of the Cold War, and the U.S. military performs similar drills annually.
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The dangers of keeping nuclear forces on a high-alert, launch-on-warning footing were real enough during the Cold War, when U.S. and Russian command and control systems were reliable and followed a strict line of authority. This is no longer the case. Not only do Russian generals today have the power to launch Russian missiles independent of their political masters, Russia?s ability to accurately detect incoming missiles has eroded badly since the early 90s, adding to Russian insecurity and increasing the likelihood that confusing radar data could lead to a nuclear launch order.

The most famous example of this danger occurred on Jan. 25, 1995, when Norway launched a weather research rocket to explore the Northern Lights phenomenon. When Russia?s radars picked up the missile trajectory, it seemed to have been fired from a U.S. submarine in the Norwegian Sea?long suspected by the Russians as a likely first move in a U.S. surprise attack. Russian nuclear forces scrambled into position and bunker commanders inserted their launch keys, awaiting the order to turn them. Yeltsin, reportedly fuming drunk at the time, opened his nuclear briefcase and consulted with the frenzied General Staff. With their nerves screaming, together they watched the missile trajectory slowly turn away from any conceivable Russian target. When the crisis finally ended, they had less than two minutes to make a decision. (U.S. submarine-launched missiles can reach Moscow in 10 minutes.)
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Of the technology that makes up Russia?s early warning system, an estimated 60 percent is past its service life. Most worrisome of all, Russia?s global radar coverage?think of the "big board" in Dr. Strangelove?has deteriorated to the point where it is only fully operational between eight and 16 hours per day, leaving enormous holes in Russia?s view of what is happening in its air space and over U.S. missile silos.
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Meanwhile, America?s command and control system has its own problems. The network connecting U.S. launch centers to its Minuteman missiles is still in some cases powered by Eisenhower-era computers. Nor are the U.S. launch systems foolproof. In 1979, a training tape simulating a Russian surprise attack somehow made its way into the real system at the U.S. Strategic Air Command inside Cheyenne Mountain. Luckily, the officer in charge that day suspected the mistake and tracked it down. More recently, according to Bruce Blair, a classified Pentagon study found a back door into a military radio network that could be exploited to transmit phony launch orders.
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Russian hypersensitivity about U.S. intentions doesn?t exist in a vacuum. While the paranoia and bitterness at the highest levels of the Russian military are partly a result of history and disposition, U.S. policy can modulate how this paranoia and bitterness translates into policy.

In 1991, a recently retired member of the General Staff named General Yuriy Kirshin gave a talk in Washington, DC, in which he discussed the dilemma of overwhelming U.S. power in the face of Russian weakness. "The most important thing the U.S. can do to contribute to world peace," he said, "[is] convince the [Russian] General Staff that the U.S. does not want to conquer the world."
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The Iraq invasion, President Bush?s stream of imperial white papers, NATO?s imminent "big bang" and plans to develop a new generation of bunker-busting "mini-nukes" have all quickened the pattern in which U.S. policy sweats up the palms of an already nervous and distrustful Russian General Staff, not to mention the rest of the world. Cap it off with the recent announcement that the number of interceptors in the U.S. national missile defense system will be doubled while a new generation of nuclear weapons is pursued, and one is forgiven for wondering if anybody at the Pentagon or the White House has any appreciation of how foreign threat perception can adversely affect U.S. national security.
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That the nuclear firewall is being lowered even before it is breached is evident in Russia?s evolving nuclear doctrine as well. The Russians have made it clear that they now reserve the right to use nuclear weapons even in the face of conventional threats. This is a post-Cold War development for both countries.
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The Bush administration?s disdain for meaningful arms control measures even spreads into a lack of concern for securing Russia?s nuclear materials from sabotage and theft, a crucial component of any honestly fought "war on terror." The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, created to help the countries of the former U.S.S.R. guard and destroy nuclear materials, is viewed by the White House and the Republican majority in Congress as just another liberal foreign aid program; its funding was slashed in the 2003 budget. Former senator Sam Nunn, one of the program?s creators, is currently out raising his own private funds to implement the program.