The Nuclear Missile Foul-Up
by Jeff Lindemyer [contact information]
Letter to the Editor published in the Washington Post on September 27, 2007
The United States has a nuclear arsenal of nearly 10,000 warheads. Russia holds approximately 15,000.
The frightening B-52 incident seriously calls into question the wisdom of keeping thousands of these weapons on hair-trigger alert, ready to be launched at a moment's notice.
If six live nuclear missiles could be mistakenly sent across the country, despite elaborate safety protocols, it is not impossible to fathom another nightmare scenario: the accidental or unauthorized launch of submarine or land-based nuclear missiles. Faced with accidental or unauthorized incoming American nuclear missiles, Russia, China or some other nuclear power would have to quickly decide whether to retaliate. What started as a mistake could soon mushroom into a global nuclear exchange.
More than 15 years after the end of the Cold War, the United States should give itself some breathing room by leading a global effort to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.
Jeff Lindemyer
Policy Fellow
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
Washington
Jeff Lindemyer 202-546-0795 jlindemyer@armscontrolcenter.org
Jeff Lindemyer is a Policy Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation where he researches and tracks nonproliferation issues, legislation, and political campaigns and drafts and edits policy analyses.