For the sake of the planet, the US nuclear arsenal must not be on high alert
In the summer of 2016, the respected natural and environmental scientist said E. O. Wilson to the news website The Hattington Post that he fears nuclear conflagration is a present and clear danger to the planet. Donald Trump also expressed a similar concern. "The global warming that needs to be feared is the warming caused by nuclear weapon found in the hands of mad or weak leaders!"He squeakedTrump in 2014 in a sentence that resonated during his presidential race.
The two individuals made this diagnosis for different reasons. Trump sought to downplay the danger posed by global warming. Wilson, who acknowledges the long-term danger of climate change, expressed concern that "some stupid mistake" by a nuclear nation would spell disaster in the coming years. To the same extent, he also feared an administration led by Trump and saw him as an immediate danger, but then he still believed that there was no chance that the tycoon would be elected.
Even before the US presidential election, geopolitical tensions increased and increased the risk of a nuclear conflict. As a matter of fact, the danger from nuclear weapons standing on high alert has not diminished for several decades. The US and Russia both maintain about 900 nuclear missiles ready for launch . This is a state of affairs of high alertness, where the missiles in submarines and land bases are ready for immediate launch. This is done to discourage the other side from launching first. The missiles are positioned so that they will be launched in response before the attackers' missiles hit their targets.
If the US early warning system detects a missile launch towards the US, it gives the president up to 12 minutes during which he can decide whether to wreak havoc on a global scale that will cost the lives of tens of millions of citizens. All missile warnings so far have been nothing more than electronic interference.
But to his horror, it happened that technical glitches fooled the American and Soviet warning systems and warned of attacks that did not exist. In 1983, a Soviet counterattack was averted only because a Russian military officer decided to trust a gut feeling and ruled that satellite data warning of approaching American missiles was a false alarm.
The US also knew of faults. In 1979, computers at the command center in Colorado Springs signaled that a heavy Soviet nuclear attack had been launched. Both US ballistic missiles and nuclear-tipped missiles went into action and stopped only when satellite data did not confirm the warning. It turned out that data generated by practice software simulating a massive attack had somehow reached an operational computer.
The "button" can also be portrayed as a morbid temptation in the eyes of an unstable leader. In 1974, during the impeachment proceedings of President Richard M. Nixon, he told reporters: "I can walk into my office, pick up the phone, and within 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead." The Secretary of Defense at the time, James Schlesinger, who was worried about Nixon's attitude at the time, requested that he be informed before carrying out any directive that Nixon would issue on a nuclear launch.
The existential dangers associated with the current US policy outline led both Barack Obama and George W. Bush to pledge during their first presidential election campaigns to take steps to lower the level of readiness of the ballistic missiles. Both failed to keep this pledge, leaving the It is in the hands of the new administration.
Trump, whose positions on various issues ranged from one extreme to another during his 2016 presidential election campaign, needs to assure the American electorate that he intends to govern with a confident hand and pledge to lower the high alert status of the US nuclear weapons to allow more time to decide whether to press On the button or not.
Trumpap should adopt some practical suggestions proposed by the Association of Involved Scientists (UCS) and other groups that care about public safety, some of which are easy to implement immediately. Locking the safety nets in the launch towers of the nuclear missiles, a procedure called "safety netsira", which is used when maintenance workers are working on site, will prevent an accidental launch. It will take at least half a day to cancel the order, because the launch towers are not fully manned, enough time to delay an irreversible decision.
As the UCS pointed out, if the US takes this unilateral step, it will be able to reduce the risk of an inadvertent launch that could lead to a nuclear counterstrike directed at its citizens. This step could perhaps also be used as a prelude to similar steps such as removing the nuclear warheads and storing them elsewhere and at the end of a total elimination of the ground weapons. The Russians may even be convinced to act in a similar way, since the submarines are invulnerable Relatively speaking, both the US and Russia know they can launch a counterattack. All these steps will make the world a safer place and it is possible that they will even dissuade China, as they are not on high alert, from raising their alertness to this level as well. The need for better preventive measures also becomes more important because of sophisticated cyber technologies that can, theoretically, break into control and command systems and launch a missile ready for launch.
Downgrading the U.S. nuclear stockpile will cost pennies but may provide enough time to prevent a recurring disaster that becomes the most immediate threat to our existence.
2 תגובות
retort
All the proposals of the left (in Israel and in the USA) are stupid. They have only one goal in recent years: to try to replace the government in an undemocratic way (they cannot win democratically. They are not wanted. They are like the rejected child in class).
I have never heard a more stupid offer than this.
That the USA will besiege its nuclear weapons, when all the lunatics from Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and the former Soviet Union countries... have such weapons with their finger on the trigger, and the only thing that prevents them from using them is the fear of the USA.
The innocent reporter should have a good heart... They know that if the global balance of terror has lasted for decades without anyone daring to use such a weapon, it is only because of the fear of the various lunatics that the USA can use its nuclear weapons quickly.