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Sunday, January 27, 2013

Nuclear war accidents: Minutemen missiles in silos should be abolished. - Slate Magazine

Nuclear war accidents: Minutemen missiles in silos should be abolished. - Slate Magazine
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  1. RAYLOKEJanuary 27, 2013 at 11:37 AM

    PIPE DREAMS ;
    Sure, I'd like to reduce the number as well. I'd like to abolish all nuclear weapons if that pipe dream were possible. (I explore the problems and obstacles this would pose in a recent Scientific American article.) And I'd even like us to continue down the road of gradual reductions as far as we can go. But it's clear from the agonizing START ratification negotiations in the U.S. Senate and the Russian Duma that any new treaty for further reductions in the number of weapons is going to be a nonstarter, so to speak. There is no sign the administration is giving the matter any priority anymore. It was too exhausting rolling the rock of treaty up the Hill. It will take only 34 Republican senators to kill any reduction treaty. And kill it they will.


    But my proposal is something I believe could be accomplished without the formal treaty process, by executive order in the United States and executive decree in Russia. The president, as commander in chief, has the ability to make discretionary decisions, such as what kind of delivery vehicles should be used, without consulting the Senate. This is something he could do unilaterally if Putin doesn't want to go along, and despite the fear that surrounds any unilateral nuclear act, it would actually make us—and them and the whole world—safer.


    For those who haven't followed the relationship between delivery vehicle types and nuclear weapons treaty negotiations, this is the state of play. The 2011 START was saddled with many caveats and add-ons by the Senate and the Russian Duma that make withdrawal from the treaty by either side for any number of reasons (mostly involving the Pentagon's love and the Russians' hatred for anti-ballistic missile defense "shields") an easy matter. Nonetheless, it promises that both the U.S. and Russian military will reduce the number of operational nuclear warheads from approximately 2,300 on each side (most likely more) to 1,550 by February 2018. And the number of delivery vehicles—missile-silos, bombers, submarine missile tubes—to about 800.
    .... CONT/-

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