John Buell

False Alarms and Nuclear Realism

Sometimes life throws a bouquet our way, a little message that could make our lives better if only we scooped it up. The recent mistaken test of Hawaii’s nuclear warning system—complete with the false admonition that “this is not a drill”— should be an occasion to examine the prevailing “realism” about nuclear weapons. Any time advocates of disarmament argue on behalf of a nuclear free world they are deemed naïve. The realistic posture demands recognition that this is a dangerous world and that our enemies will only respond to power and the threat of massive retaliation in the face of an attack.

This realism leaves unanswered several vital questions. What kind of realism is it that assumes complex technologies always work as advertised? US Navy ships, possessing the most sophisticated navigational instruments, cannot avoid collisions.

CNN recently reported on a series of naval crashes last year. The USS McCain, a guided missile destroyer, collided with an oil tanker crash about 50 nautical miles east of Singapore on Aug. 21, 2017, the USS Fitzgerald cargo ship collided with the container ship MC Crystal off the coast of Japan on June 17, resulting in the deaths of seven US sailors, the USS Lake Champlain guided missile cruiser hit a South Korean fishing boat near the Korean Peninsula in May and the USS Antietam guided missile cruiser ran aground while trying to anchor in Tokyo Bay in January 2017. The USS Benfold sustained minor damage but nobody was injured Nov. 18 when a Japanese tugboat drifted into the guided missile destroyer in a bay off central Japan. Also, a C2-A Greyhound transport plane was carrying 11 crew and passengers to an aircraft carrier when it crashed into the Philippine Sea; three sailors died.

CNN’s report inadvertently exposes another important aspect of this story — the complex interactions of sailors, technologies, maintenance, shipboard routines in collisions and/or their avoidance.

Retired Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, a CNN diplomatic and military analyst, said “the Navy’s review will look at a number of factors to try to understand whether there’s a systemic problem. They’ll look at the quality of leadership at all levels, the amount and the quality of training that commanders have been able to get done, shipboard watch-standing procedures and qualifications, and system and equipment readiness.”

If avoiding collisions at sea requires more than a technology fix how much more of a challenge is the safe management and deployment of nuclear weapons? In his work on nuclear accidents, Eric Schlosser points out the contradictory imperatives faced by weapons makers and their handlers. The weapons must be fired quickly when necessary yet they must also never be fired inappropriately. Experts call this the always/never problem. Usually progress on one front entails a loss on the other.

The same dilemma is likely in play with respect to the Hawaii missile warning system. Emergency management specialists want it to be sensitive and fast enough to provide timely warnings yet able to be recalled or verified quickly enough to avoid false alarms.

Any solution to those problems will have to be embedded in chips. One IT specialist confidently points out that in Hawaii now a second person has to sign off on sending an alarm, while cancelling them will be easier. But as the editors of Naked Capitalism remind us “this report comes amid a seemingly unending level of reports of software and hardware screw-ups. For instance, Finnish researchers have found yet another Intel security hole, with the saving grace that this one affects only laptops.”

How is it that nuclear systems have avoided catastrophic accident so far? The short answer is that numerous accidents have occurred, but fortunately these have not involved the detonation of a nuclear bomb. Perhaps the most important reason there is too little discussion of nuclear risks is the complete secrecy enveloping the program. Throughout the Cold War era the US led the nuclear arms race at every single step. (Even the so- called missile gap was a campaign-inspired creation of John Kennedy’s presidential bid.) Cold Warriors claimed secrecy was the key to technological dominance and blamed spies for gains by our enemies. Though spies there were, their contribution to the arms race was minimal. The larger contribution made by government enforced secrecy was to blunt public discussion of nuclear risks and to portray nuclear critics as Soviet dupes.

The realism of the pro nuclear establishment also extends to the sure confidence these modern warriors display in assessing potential casualties and long- term effects of a nuclear strike. In the aftermath of the false alarm one Pentagon official “told a recent event … that Washington regards Pyongyang as a grave threat and is prepared to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike if necessary,” the Sunday Times also reported. … If Mr Kim used his artillery to attack Seoul, there would be thousands of casualties but Seoul would be able to build a reunified Korea.” As though we could just put the lego blocks back together. Recent experience with far less lethal attacks has hardly been reassuring.

John Buell lives in Southwest Harbor, Maine, and writes regularly on labor and environmental issues. Email jbuell@acadia.net.

From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2018

Populist.com