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Nuclear war danger now becoming greater than during the Cold War

In a new study, the arms control advocacy group Global Zero analysed 146 such incidents over the past 21 months, classing two of them as high risk. It deemed 33 provocative in that they “stray from the norm of routine incidents, resulting in more aggressive or confrontational interaction that can quickly escalate to higher-risk incidents or even conflict”.

Perry said: “In the cold war, we and Russia were in the process of dismantling nuclear weapons … Today, in contrast, both the Russia and the US are beginning a complete rebuilding of the cold war nuclear arsenals.”

Nuclear weapons risk greater than in cold war, says ex-Pentagon chief

William Perry lists a series of factors that he says mean the chance of a ‘calamity’ is higher today than in the 1970s and 80s, Guardian, Julian Borger, 8 Jan 16,  The risks of a nuclear catastrophe – in a regional war, terrorist attack, by accident or miscalculation – is greater than it was during the cold war and rising, a former US defence secretary has said.

William Perry, who served at the Pentagon from 1994 to 1997, made his comments a few hours before North Korea’s nuclear test on Wednesday, and listed Pyongyang’s aggressive atomic weapons programme as one of the global risk factors.

He also said progress made after the fall of the Soviet Union to reduce the chance of a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia was now unravelling.

“The probability of a nuclear calamity is higher today, I believe, that it was during the cold war,” Perry said. “A new danger has been rising in the past three years and that is the possibility there might be a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia … brought about by a substantial miscalculation, a false alarm.”……

A new danger has been rising … the possibility there might be a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia

William Perry, former US defence secretary

In a new study, the arms control advocacy group Global Zero analysed 146 such incidents over the past 21 months, classing two of them as high risk. It deemed 33 provocative in that they “stray from the norm of routine incidents, resulting in more aggressive or confrontational interaction that can quickly escalate to higher-risk incidents or even conflict”.

Over the same period, the group counted 29 incidents between North and South Korea, including three high-risk incidents, and 40 military encounters around disputed islands in the South China Sea, which brought confrontations and near-misses between Chinese forces and those of the US or its regional allies. Ten of the incidents were deemed provocative.

In south Asia, where three nuclear-armed states face off , the study counted 54 significant military incidents between India, Pakistan and China, including 22 border clashes in and around Kashmir………

Twenty years after the cold war, neither nation has ruled out first use of its nuclear arsenal and both maintain a launch-on-warning, keeping a combined total of 1,800 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.

Barack Obama would have less than 30 minutes to decide whether early warning satellite data showing an incoming missile attack was credible. His Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, would have under half that time to make up his mind because Russia does not currently have a working early warning satellite.

“These weapons are literally waiting for a short stream of computer signals to fire. They don’t care where these signals come from.” said Bruce Blair, a former US missile launch officer and co-founder of Global Zero……..

Nuclear experts say the growth of cyberwarfare potentially poses the biggest threat to the integrity and reliability of automated command and control systems.

“In the cold war we were not contemplating how a cyber-attack might go awry. Its hard to be specific about that risk, but it seems to be very real and a growing danger,” said Perry, who has written a book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, which highlights the increasing risks. “Some kind of cyber-attack on our nuclear command system either in the United States or Russia could be the basis for a miscalculation made about a launch.”……..

A 2013 review by the Pentagon’s defence science board found that US nuclear weapon control systems had not been properly assessed for their cyber-vulnerabilities.

At the risk of understating things, this project is bat-shit crazy

Jeffrey Lewis, James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies

The then head of US Strategic Command, General Robert Kehler, told the Senate armed services committee in 2013 that there was “no significant vulnerability” in the nuclear command and control system, but later conceded: “We don’t know what we don’t know.” When asked whether Russia and China could prevent a cyber-attack from launching their nuclear missiles, he replied: “Senator, I don’t know.”……..

January 8, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, weapons and war