Experts warn of an accidental atomic war

[Jcrowley]

Experts warn of an accidental atomic war
Nuclear missile modified for conventional attack on Iran could set off alarm in Russia
Eric Rosenberg, Hearst Newspapers
Friday, October 6, 2006
 
(10-06) 04:00 PDT Washington -- A Pentagon project to modify its deadliest nuclear missile for use as a conventional weapon against targets such as North Korea and Iran could unwittingly spark an atomic war, two weapons experts warned Thursday. Russian military officers might misconstrue a submarine-launched conventional D5 intercontinental ballistic missile and conclude that Russia is under nuclear attack, said Ted Postol, a physicist and professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Pavel Podvig, a physicist and weapons specialist at Stanford.

"Any launch of a long-range nonnuclear armed sea or land ballistic missile will cause an automated alert of the Russian early warning system," Postol told reporters.

The triggering of an alert wouldn't necessarily precipitate a retaliatory hail of Russian nuclear missiles, Postol said. Nevertheless, he said, "there can be no doubt that such an alert will greatly increase the chances of a nuclear accident involving strategic nuclear forces."

Podvig said launching conventional versions of a missile from a submarine that normally carries nuclear ICBMs "expands the possibility for a misunderstanding so widely that it is hard to contemplate."

Mixing conventional and nuclear D5s on a U.S. Trident submarine "would be very dangerous," Podvig said, because the Russians have no way of discriminating between the two types of missiles once they are launched.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/06/MNGF9LJSMM1.DTL&hw=atomic&sn=008&sc=554

[bluerum]

1. Dr.Strangelove did this wonderfully - in the 60's.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. lovely.

one more exciting way for us all to die a horrible death.

[Demeter]

3. It Won't Be Any Accident

It will be intentional==and the one who pushes the button will be the first to go.

[ruiner4u]

4. 99 red balloons .......... n/t

[low_phreaq]

5. Has anybody read the book "Fail-Safe"?

Here are a couple quotes from the preface to the 1962 book "Fail-Safe" by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler:

"For there is substantial agreement among experts that an accidental war is possible and that its probability increases with the increasing complexity of the man-machine components which make up our defense system. Hardly a week passes without some new warning of this danger by knowledgeable persons who take seriously their duty to warn and inform the people. In addition, all too often past crises have been revealed to us in which the world tottered on the brink of thermonuclear war while S.A.C. commanders pondered the true nature of unidentified flying objects on their radar screens."

"The accident may not occur in the way we describe but the laws of probability assure us that ultimately it will occur. The logic of politics tells us that when it does, the only way out will be a choice of disasters."