Balanced on the nuclear precipice

End of Cold War didn’t remove missile threat.

JAMES CARTWRIGHT would seem an unlikely campaigner for nuclear disarmament. He is a former US Marine four-star general. He rose to be vice-chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and headed America’s Strategic Command.

James spoke quietly at a Dealerting of Nuclear Weapons meeting held during the NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference I attended in New York but his message was clear. Having strategic nuclear weapons on high alert places human survival at risk and de-alerting those missiles is a top priority.

Over 1000 weapons in the US and Russia remain on Cold War settings of ‘launch on warning’. The missiles can be launched at a minute’s notice hence the term ‘Minuteman’ applied to the US missiles. From the time of launching it then takes just 15 to 30 minutes for strategic missiles to hit their targets in the other country. When warned of an apparent attack a Russian or American president would have literally just a few minutes to decide whether to counter attack. The underlying strategy for both is still to counterattack before incoming missiles strike so that the capacity to inflict mutually assured destruction is not diminished.

There is effectively no time in this situation for a rational decision-making process or dialogue to avert a crisis. The decision to fire missiles in retaliation would at best be a death sentence for hundreds of millions of people, at worst the end of civilisation and the elimination of life on Earth.

Malfunctions in the early warning systems have already taken the world to the edge of a nuclear holocaust. In 1979, the US computer system showed an attack by the Soviet Union. US National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was calling President Carter to advise retaliatory action when the system showed a false alarm. On another occasion in the US a wrench was dropped down a silo containing a nuclear warhead igniting a major fire under a missile.

In 1983 another near disaster happened in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Satellite Early Warning system repeatedly showed that a US attack was underway. The officer in charge, Colonel Stanislav Petrov, declined to advise a retaliatory strike, preventing what might have been a catastrophic outcome. The supposed missile attack turned out to be an electrical storm misinterpreted by the satellite’s computers.

There are now new risks according to General Cartwright and the Global Zero Commission he heads. One is that cyber warfare might be used by a third party to interfere with missile launch systems of a nuclear weapon state. In 2012 NATO experienced more than 2500 ‘‘significant cyber attacks’’ against its systems. These failed but cyber warfare capacity is growing. Another risk is growing extremism and the possibility that terrorist groups might gain control of weapons by seizure of weapons or infiltration of personnel into command structures.

These nightmare scenarios cannot be ruled out. There need be only one occasion resulting from a malfunction or for the actions of malevolent forces to succeed to result in catastrophic consequences. Concerned at the risk that nuclear weapons on high alert posed, I took action as Minister of Disarmament in 2007 to have a de-alerting resolution put before the United Nations (UN) General Assembly calling for states to take their weapons off ‘launch on waiting’ status. The current Government has continued to promote that resolution which is now supported by three quarters of UN member countries. Nuclearweapon states should heed this call and act immediately to take their strategic missiles off high alert. Agreeing to do so at the current NPT conference in New York would represent a real step forward.