Risk of nuclear accidents is rising, says report on near-misses

[dipsydoodle]

A report recounting a litany of near-misses in which nuclear weapons came close to being launched by mistake concludes that the risk of potentially catastrophic accidents is higher than previously thought and appears to be rising.

Too Close for Comfort: Cases of Near Nuclear Use and Options for Policy, published by Chatham House, says that "individual decision-making, often in disobedience of protocol and political guidance, has on several occasions saved the day", preventing the launch of nuclear warheads.

The report lists 13 instances since 1962 when nuclear weapons were nearly used. In several cases the large-scale launch of nuclear weapons was nearly triggered by technical malfunctions or breakdowns in communication causing false alarms, in both the US and Russia. Disaster was averted only by cool-headed individuals gambling that the alert was caused by a glitch and not an actual attack.

The Chatham House authors say the risks appear to be rising. Nuclear weapons are spreading – most recently to North Korea – and disarmament is stalling. Russia and the US still have an estimated 1,800 warheads on high alert, ready to launch between five and 15 minutes after receiving the launch order – a fact that becomes all the more significant with rising tensions over Ukraine.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/29/nuclear-accident-near-misses-report

Too Close for Comfort: Cases of Near Nuclear Use and Options for Policy http://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/199200?dm_i=1TY5,2EIQH,BHZJ2P,8Q9SA,1

[DreamGypsy]

1. Interesting report. I didn't know that THE WAR could have happened on my 27th birthday...

... 9 November 1979 NORAD: Exercise tape mistaken for reality United States Exercise scenario tape causes nuclear alert

On 9 November 1979, a missile warning system was inadvertently fed test scenario data concerning a Soviet nuclear attack. Only the ability of NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) to access the US Air Force’s Ballistic Missile Early-Warning System PAVE PAWS radar enabled it to confirm that this alert was false and an exercise tape had been left in the system.74 The incident was troubling enough to prompt Senators Gary Hart and Barry Goldwater to write a report to the Senate Committee on Armed Services, titled Recent False Alerts from the Nation’s Missile Attack Warning System. Following the incident, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev asked President Carter rhetorically in a communiqué, what kind of mechanism is it which allows a possibility of such incidents?’75 In 1980, NORAD changed its rules and standards regarding the evidence needed to support a launch on warning.

Yet less than a year later early-warning systems again falsely reported a Soviet nuclear strike. At 02:26 on 3 June 1980, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski received a telephone call from General William Odom informing him that the Soviet Union had launched 220 missiles at the United States. Upon receiving confirmation of the attack in a subsequent phone call, with the amendment that it was in fact 2,200 missiles that were headed towards the country, Brzezinski prepared to inform President Carter. With only a minute until Brzezinski was to notify the president, Odom telephoned for a third time to inform Brzezinski that no other early-warning systems had detected these Soviet missiles. The false alarm was later determined to have been caused by a faulty computer chip.

The Button Pusher: A bump of me ass as I go past and we all go up in smoke

Thanks for the post, dipsydoodle.