Comment by Victerius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Victerius | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Before the introduction of permissive action links (PAL), nuclear weapons could be operated and detonated by almost anyone.

> The exact details are hazy, but the broad contours are clear: the inspection team found the control of the forward-based nuclear weapons inadequate and possibly illegal. In Germany and Turkey they viewed scenes that were particularly distressing. On the runway stood a German (or Turkish) quick-reaction alert airplane (QRA) loaded with nuclear weapons and with a foreign pilot in the cockpit. The QRA airplane was ready to take off at the earliest warning, and the nuclear weapons were fully operational. The only evidence of U.S. control was a lonely 18-year-old sentry armed with a carbine and standing on the tarmac. When the sentry at the German airfield was asked how he intended to maintain control of the nuclear weapons should the pilot suddenly decide to scramble (either through personal caprice or through an order from the German command circumventing U.S. command), the sentry replied that he would shoot the pilot; Agnew directed him to shoot the bomb.

https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/nsam-160/pal.html

The 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were a wild time. Tens of thousands of deadly devices in the hands of two superpowers armed to the teeth, and not a single rogue general. Not one single device sold to terrorists on the black market. It's a miracle we made it out alive.

I see your article mentions this, but I love to highlight this one story:

Strategic air command opposed the installation of these locks. Their stated concern was they would interfere with a launch order, but some think they just resented civilian control.

So they allegedly worked around them. For years, the passcode keeping nuclear war at bay was 00000000

https://web.archive.org/web/20120511191600/http://www.cdi.or...

> not a single rogue general

There was a rogue soviet lieutenant colonel though, and thank god for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

Hardly rogue. In his own words - his job was to supervise the radar system and make judgement calls. He judged the detection of a single "missile" to be a false positive sincea a NATO would have consisted of a massed first strike rather than a single bogey. Petrov simply did his job.

How was he a rogue? He was doing his job and he did it well, and saved a lot of lives. That doesn’t make a rogue.

"the Soviet Union's strategy was an immediate and compulsory nuclear counter-attack against the United States (launch on warning), specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction."

Immediate. Compulsory.

Yeah, but there wasn't an attack.

What’s not included is the confirmation that they are under attack.

> Not one single device sold to terrorists on the black market.

I mean, there’s this journalist investigation - https://www.businessinsider.com/you-can-buy-a-nuclear-warhea...

Nation states, sure, they've probably bought a few, but I think the evidence points to no terrorists.

If a nation state has a nuke, it's in their interest to hold it as deterrent. As soon as it's used, anyone seeking accountability knows whom to visit. Eg Pakistan, Israel, NK have all been holding for years with motive to use them, but haven't.

If a terrorist group has a nuke, it's in their interest to use it asap. If they delay, it might be taken away from them. If they use it, they achieve the attention and blood they seek, while the world doesn't know where they all live (assuming good opsec) and where they might have more. This might indicate they don't have any.

> Nation states, sure, they've probably bought a few […] If a nation state has a nuke, it's in their interest to hold it as deterrent.

It also is in their interest to let ‘them’ know they have an atomic bomb. Of course, they could have done that secretly, but I think the world at large would know of it, anyways. Since that hasn’t happened (Pakistan and North Korea built their own devices, and so, likely, did Israel, all after buying it stealing the technology), I think it’s unlikely this happened.

> If they [terrorists] use it, they achieve the attention and blood they seek, while the world doesn't know where they all live

Terrorists don’t want to instill fear, they want to instill fear in the pursuit of political aims. Because of that, they would have to tell the world they were responsible. I think the world would figure out where they live from that.

I agree with you that it’s unlikely terrorist groups are in possession of nuclear devices. It’s not a weapon that’s easily hidden (its radiation probably gives it away), and it’s expensive to obtain, and they wouldn’t have many, so losing one without using it would be a big loss.

Their size (you probably need a truck to move them) is more of a challenge. Nuclear weapons are well-shielded to not make handling them dangerous, therefore their radiation is barely noticeable. After all, that's the reason lost ones are so hard to locate. Put them in a metal crate or a container, and they should fade into the natural background radiation.

I don’t know about any shielding. They’re just plutonium and uranium, which aren’t very radioactive. They wouldn’t needlessly add weight to the weapon.

Is it thought that any of these lost wepons were an off the books way to provide non nuclear allies with a deterrent.

I don’t think that’s the case. Secretly having a bomb gives you the ability to strike hard, but on its own it doesn’t deter.

If you want to deter, it’s not sufficient to have teeth, you have to show them or at least convince your enemy to believe you have them, and that only seems to be happening by countries that built their own such as Russia, North Korea and Pakistan.

So, how would, say, Canada secretly having a bomb deter anybody from attacking it?

Also, the USA already provides non-nuclear allies with a way to deter by storing on-the-book weapons in their countries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing) That doesn’t have to happen off the books.

Are you suggesting there are countries they trust enough to store nuclear bombs there, while they don’t want the world at large to know about that? I can’t think of any country that would qualify for that.

I was thinking about somewhere like Israel or Taiwan, that a sitting president might be willing to push the button to defend a nation, but not have confidence that their successor would do the same, and so put the matter in the hands of the nation itself.

Another possibility: intelligence agency has an unaccounted for nuclear weapon, particularly one made by another country, and holds onto it secretly in case they ever want to commit a false-flag terrorist attack with it. Such a bomb needn't be fully operational; a failed detonation might still achieve the desired effect.

I like this. How has a thriller not be made about this very scenario?

I may be misremembering, but I think this was the plot of a Tom Clancy novel.

Yep, Tom Clancy's Sum of All Fears has a very similar premise. Israel loses a nuclear bomb during the Yom Kippur War, which is subsequently recovered by Palestinians who team up with some East Germans to start a war between America and the Soviet Union by blowing up Denver (the bomb fizzles.)

How did they screw the movie up so very thoroughly? The novel was not Clancy's best, but still great, very readable. I found the movie unwatchable.

Yeah I agree. Clancy movie adaptations seem to have all been downhill since Hunt for Red October. Arguably his books too, although Red Storm Rising is still my favorite (and probably impossible to make a good movie of, the scope is too large and Russia too competent.)

I've long thought Red Storm Rising could have made a really good miniseries. You're right the scope is too big for a singular movie but maybe just right for a 6-10 hour series. It won't happen now though given Russia's recent displays of competence. The premise will be considered too outlandish. It would end up as believable as the Red Dawn remake or the one where the North Koreans shoot up the White House.

If any terrorist organization had ever put their hands on a nuke, they would have either used it or threatened to use it.

We'll find out soon. Apparently Trump scuttled the anti nuke deal with Iran on his way out of office, and they're enriching uranium again.

Tehran says they're planning to level New York City ASAP (within the year). Among other things, they're lobbying to be taken off a list of terrorist organizations.

>It's a miracle we made it out alive.

It's a selection bias. In all the universes in which a nuclear war was triggered, we wouldn't be alive here today discussing it; we could only exist in a universe in which a nuclear holocaust didn't occur.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com