A Nuclear Error: Difference between revisions
Updated article to current state of several countries as of 2016
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(Updated article to current state of several countries as of 2016) |
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* Presidential power: The US President cannot launch a nuclear first strike without the cooperation of the Secretary of Defense or any other administrative official that's been appointed/approved by Congress (e.g., CIA director, most of the Presidential Cabinet...). Ordering a retaliatory strike was something a number of people had authority to do. The plane known as "Looking Glass" had authority to do so in the event that the National Command Authority was killed or out of contact. Were DEFCON to reach level 2, both pilot and co-pilot would be required to wear eye-patches in case a nuclear explosion render their exposed eye either momentarily or permanently blind, but nowadays they use goggles. While current policies are classified, it can be assumed that after a major strike on the USA, remaining weapons would be released, with or without higher command. For the Soviets, supposedly, the semi-automatic [[wikipedia:Perimetr|Perimetr]] system had three human operators who were able to give the order to launch all remaining warheads in case when on-site seismic detectors detected multiple nuclear explosions on Russian soil and high command is inaccessible. It is unknown if the system is still in use today.
* Using a missile warhead as a stand-still bomb: Since the Cuban Missile Crisis, virtually all nuclear warheads are designed so that they will only go off after being exposed to certain environmental conditions- as in the large numbers of Gs associated with a missile launch.
* Most films behave as if only the USA and USSR had nukes. In reality, the UK, France, China were also nuclear powers before the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Later, India and South Africa produced weapons before the end of the Cold War. In an [[The Not-Secret|open secret]], Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons since the 60's or 70's. Several European countries had American bombs stationed there too. South Africa disarmed in 1990; Pakistan joined the club in 1998
** In fact, it's widely suspected that the [[wikipedia:Vela Incident|Vela Incident]] was a joint Israeli/South African nuclear test, as S. Africa was being subjected to multiple embargoes and sanctions due to Apartheid, and Israel was looking for a nation to help them gain nuclear capability because they were being embargoed by some nations in the West.
* Disarming a ICBM Post-Launch: Deployed strategic ballistic missiles do not have any mechanisms for the attacker to remotely disarm or destroy the weapons after launch. For all intents and purposes once the missile has been fired it can only be stopped either by mechanical malfunction or interception. Missiles which are used for testing are modified with a self-destruct mechanism in case something goes wrong, but live warheads are not used for testing the missiles.
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