Re World War Three, by Mistake

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: John Day <jeanjour () comcast net>
> Date: December 26, 2016 at 2:16:42 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] World War Three, by Mistake
>
> If you remember, the 1960s novel “Fail-Safe” is based on a B-52 on station being given the “go” because of a chip 
> going bad at the wrong time.
>
> When I saw the subject line, I thought this was going to be about the recent Israel/Pakistan “interaction.”
>
> But it is right, the recent harsh words being bantered about are increasing the probability.
>
> John
>
>
> > On Dec 26, 2016, at 12:59, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > > From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> > > Date: December 24, 2016 at 11:28:16 AM EST
> > > To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> > > Subject: [Dewayne-Net] World War Three, by Mistake
> > > Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
> > >
> > > World War Three, by Mistake
> > > Harsh political rhetoric, combined with the vulnerability of the nuclear command-and-control system, has made the 
> > > risk of global catastrophe greater than ever.
> > > By Eric Schlosser
> > > Dec 23 2016
> > > <http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/world-war-three-by-mistake>
> > >
> > > On June 3, 1980, at about two-thirty in the morning, computers at the National Military Command Center, beneath the 
> > > Pentagon, at the headquarters of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), deep within Cheyenne Mountain, 
> > > Colorado, and at Site R, the Pentagon’s alternate command post center hidden inside Raven Rock Mountain, 
> > > Pennsylvania, issued an urgent warning: the Soviet Union had just launched a nuclear attack on the United States. 
> > > The Soviets had recently invaded Afghanistan, and the animosity between the two superpowers was greater than at any 
> > > other time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
> > >
> > > U.S. Air Force ballistic-missile crews removed their launch keys from the safes, bomber crews ran to their planes, 
> > > fighter planes took off to search the skies, and the Federal Aviation Administration prepared to order every 
> > > airborne commercial airliner to land.
> > >
> > > President Jimmy Carter’s national-security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was asleep in Washington, D.C., when the 
> > > phone rang. His military aide, General William Odom, was calling to inform him that two hundred and twenty missiles 
> > > launched from Soviet submarines were heading toward the United States. Brzezinski told Odom to get confirmation of 
> > > the attack. A retaliatory strike would have to be ordered quickly; Washington might be destroyed within minutes. 
> > > Odom called back and offered a correction: twenty-two hundred Soviet missiles had been launched.
> > >
> > > Brzezinski decided not to wake up his wife, preferring that she die in her sleep. As he prepared to call Carter and 
> > > recommend an American counterattack, the phone rang for a third time. Odom apologized—it was a false alarm. An 
> > > investigation later found that a defective computer chip in a communications device at NORAD headquarters had 
> > > generated the erroneous warning. The chip cost forty-six cents.
> > >
> > > A similar false alarm had occurred the previous year, when someone mistakenly inserted a training tape, featuring a 
> > > highly realistic simulation of an all-out Soviet attack, into one of NORAD’s computers. During the Cold War, false 
> > > alarms were also triggered by the moon rising over Norway, the launch of a weather rocket from Norway, a solar 
> > > storm, sunlight reflecting off high-altitude clouds, and a faulty A.T. & T. telephone switch in Black Forest, 
> > > Colorado.
> > >
> > > My book “Command and Control” explores how the systems devised to govern the use of nuclear weapons, like all 
> > > complex technological systems, are inherently flawed. They are designed, built, installed, maintained, and operated 
> > > by human beings. But the failure of a nuclear command-and-control system can have consequences far more serious 
> > > than the crash of an online dating site from too much traffic or flight delays caused by a software glitch. 
> > > Millions of people, perhaps hundreds of millions, could be annihilated inadvertently. “Command and Control” 
> > > focusses on near-catastrophic errors and accidents in the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union 
> > > that ended in 1991. The danger never went away. Today, the odds of a nuclear war being started by mistake are 
> > > low—and yet the risk is growing, as the United States and Russia drift toward a new cold war. The other day, 
> > > Senator John McCain called Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, “a thug, a bully, and a 
> > > murderer,” adding that anyone who “describes him as anything else is lying.” Other members of Congress have 
> > > attacked Putin for trying to influence the Presidential election.  On Thursday, Putin warned that Russia would 
> > > “strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces,” and President-elect Donald Trump has responded 
> > > with a vow to expand America’s nuclear arsenal.  “Let it be an arms race,” Trump told one of the co-hosts of 
> > > MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”
> > >
> > > The harsh rhetoric on both sides increases the danger of miscalculations and mistakes, as do other factors. Close 
> > > encounters between the military aircraft of the United States and Russia have become routine, creating the 
> > > potential for an unintended conflict. Many of the nuclear-weapon systems on both sides are aging and obsolete. The 
> > > personnel who operate those systems often suffer from poor morale and poor training. None of their senior officers 
> > > has firsthand experience making decisions during an actual nuclear crisis. And today’s command-and-control systems 
> > > must contend with threats that barely existed during the Cold War: malware, spyware, worms, bugs, viruses, 
> > > corrupted firmware, logic bombs, Trojan horses, and all the other modern tools of cyber warfare. The greatest 
> > > danger is posed not by any technological innovation but by a dilemma that has haunted nuclear strategy since the 
> > > first detonation of an atomic bomb: How do you prevent a nuclear attack while preserving the ability to launch one?
> > >
> > > “The pattern of the use of atomic weapons was set at Hiroshima,” J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of 
> > > the Manhattan Project, said in November, 1945, just a few months after the Japanese city’s destruction. “They are 
> > > weapons of aggression, of surprise, and of terror.” Nuclear weapons made annihilation vastly more efficient. A 
> > > single bomb could now destroy a target whose elimination had once required thousands of bombs. During an aerial 
> > > attack, you could shoot down ninety-nine per cent of the enemy’s bombers—and the plane that you missed could 
> > > obliterate an entire city. A war between two countries with nuclear weapons, like a Wild West shoot-out, might be 
> > > won by whoever fired first. And a surprise attack might provide the only hope of national survival—especially for 
> > > the country with an inferior nuclear arsenal.
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/>
> >
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