launch on warning Concepts

On Nature and Language

by Noam Chomsky · 16 Apr 2007

and maintains the nuclear weapons delivery triad – Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Sea-launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), and long-range bombers. These are to remain in “launch-on-warning posture,” perpetuating the high-alert regime of the past years, with its ever-present danger to survival. New programs were initiated to implement these decisions

Wireless

by Charles Stross · 7 Jul 2009

nuclear. Trouble is, they did so two hours before that speech. Some asshole in Plotsk launched half the Uralskaye SS-20 grid—they went to launch on warning eight months ago—burning south, praise Jesus. Scratch the Middle East, period—everything from the Nile to the Khyber Pass is toast. We’re still

This Is Only a Test: How Washington D.C. Prepared for Nuclear War

by David F. Krugler · 2 Jan 2006 · 423pp · 115,336 words

, 254; Miller, The Cold War, 95–9, 110–2. NSC Planning Board, “U.S. Policy on Continental Defense,” July 14, 1960, in William Burr, ed., “Launch on Warning: The Development of U.S. Capabilities, 1959–1979,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 43, April 2001, accessed June 23, 2005 at http://www

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

by Steven Pinker · 13 Feb 2018 · 1,034pp · 241,773 words

, and whether a nation that depended on it might still be vulnerable to nuclear blackmail. So the United States and Russia maintain the option of “launch on warning,” in which a leader who is advised that his missiles are under attack can decide in the next few minutes whether to use them or

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war comes not so much from the number of weapons in existence as from the circumstances in which they might be used. The policy of launch on warning, launch under attack, or hair-trigger alert is truly the stuff of nightmares. No early warning system can perfectly distinguish signal from noise, and a

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can be launched on short notice, the risks of a false alarm or an accidental, rogue, or impetuous launch are real. The original rationale for launch on warning was to thwart a massive first strike that would destroy every missile in its silo and leave the country unable to retaliate. But as I

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made in the cold light of day, when the uncertainty has passed: if a nuclear bomb has been detonated on your territory, you know it. Launch on warning, then, is unnecessary for deterrence and unacceptably dangerous. Most nuclear security analysts recommend—no, insist—that nuclear states take their missiles off hair-trigger alert

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://futureoflife.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Alan_Robock_MIT_April2.pdf. 122. No hair trigger: Evans, Ogilvie-White, & Thakur 2014, p. 56. 123. Against launch on warning: Evans, Ogilvie-White, & Thakur 2014; J. E. Cartwright & V. Dvorkin, “How to Avert a Nuclear War,” New York Times, April 19, 2015; B. Blair, “How

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fear, failure to mobilize public, 308–311, 479n80 Graduated Reciprocation in Tension-Reduction (GRIT), 318, 320 historical pessimism and, 308 and international relations, 312, 315 launch on warning (hair trigger), 315, 319–20 Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), 315 nations with capacity, 313, 317–18, 318 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), 317

On Power and Ideology

by Noam Chomsky · 7 Jul 2015

reduce the opportunity for human intervention while threatening loss of the deterrent and “decapitation” of the high command. Thus they compel reliance on computer-controlled “launch-on-warning” strategies and on junior officers. Even now, U.S. submarine commanders have substantial authority to launch a nuclear strike, a matter recently discussed by Desmond

Turning the Tide

by Noam Chomsky · 14 Sep 2015

a real but secondary consideration, though technological advances may pose an extreme hazard, particularly if they compel resort to computer based rapid decision systems and launch-on-warning strategies, in which case war is likely if only from error, inadvertence or misjudgment in time of tension; Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI: “Star

Darwin Among the Machines

by George Dyson · 28 Mar 2012 · 463pp · 118,936 words

mutual deterrence, either by threatening to launch missiles at the first sign of enemy attack or by preserving the ability to retaliate after a strike. Launch-on-warning, serviceable as a bluff, would be suicidal in practice, since sooner or later an erroneous warning would arise. So the best way to prevent a

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance

by Noam Chomsky · 1 Jan 2003 · 351pp · 96,780 words

nuclear weapons, STRATCOM advised further, even against non-nuclear powers that have signed the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and must continue to maintain its launch-on-warning posture for strategic nuclear missiles, on hair-trigger alert. It appears that the Clinton administration adopted these proposals.3 The US is unusual, perhaps unique

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hope of gaining Chinese acquiescence to the planned dismantling of core arms control agreements. For similar reasons, Clinton negotiators had encouraged Russia to adopt a launch-on-warning strategy, a proposal that nuclear experts regarded as “pretty bizarre” because we know that Russia’s deteriorating warning systems are “full of holes” and prone

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warheads that each side maintains, with the US increasing its nuclear capabilities, which will drive Russia to heightened alert status and probable implementation of “a ‘launch-on-warning’ approach to warfare requiring rapid reaction” for launching some 3,000 warheads, sharply increasing the danger of nuclear destruction by accident. Nunn, too, dismisses the

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion ofSafety

by Eric Schlosser · 16 Sep 2013 · 956pp · 267,746 words

-and-control facilities but also its land-based missiles. To deter such an attack, the Strategic Air Command considered a new retaliatory option, known as “launch on warning” or “launch under attack.” As soon as a Soviet attack was detected—and before a single warhead detonated—the United States would launch its land

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-based missiles, saving them from destruction. A launch-on-warning policy might dissuade the Kremlin from attempting a surprise attack. But it would also place enormous demands on America’s command-and-control system. Missiles

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job an extensive knowledge of nuclear weapons, deterrence theory, and the workings of the command-and-control system. He argued against the adoption of a launch-on-warning policy, worried that it could inadvertently prove to be disastrous. Nevertheless, the policy had a strong military and psychological appeal. “Launching the ICBM force on

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both dangerous and unstable (an accident could theoretically precipitate a nuclear war).” At a meeting of the National Security Council, Iklé expressed his opposition to launch on warning, calling it “accident-prone.” Secretary of State Kissinger disagreed, praising its usefulness as a deterrent. Kissinger felt confident that the command-and-control system could

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meaningless choices that he might have to make within 10 minutes after he was awakened after a deep sleep late some night. A policy of launch on warning was “absurd and irresponsible,” and implementing the SIOP under any conditions would be “the height of folly.” The SIOP now called for the Soviet Union

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how the command-and-control systems of the United States and the Soviet Union were now poised on a hair trigger, under tremendous pressure to launch on warning if war seemed likely. Paul Bracken, a management expert at Yale University, wrote about how unmanageable a nuclear exchange would be. And Daniel Ford, a

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seemed imminent. The system would retaliate automatically, firing long-range missiles if it detected nuclear explosions on Russian soil. Perimeter greatly reduced the pressure to launch on warning at the first sign of an American attack. It gave Soviet leaders more time to investigate the possibility of a false alarm, confident that a

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. The odds of the United States launching an all-out surprise attack on Russia’s nuclear forces are infinitesimal. But the pressure to maintain a launch-on-warning policy may be stronger now in Moscow than it was thirty years ago. And the reliability of the Russian early-warning system has declined considerably

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. 612. “What seems ‘balanced’ and ‘safe’ in a crisis”: Quoted in Sagan, “Alerts and Crisis Management,” p. 124. He argued against the adoption of a launch-on-warning policy: Iklé’s opposition to launching missiles quickly was part of a larger critique of American strategic policy. See Fred Charles Iklé, “Can Nuclear Deterrence

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on the battlefield. It sought to “countervail,” to resist with equal strength, any Soviet attack. It also sought to provide Carter with the ability to launch on warning. See Odom, “The Origins and Design of Presidential Decision-59,” and “Presidential Directive/NSC-59,” July 25, 1980 (TOP SECRETSENSITIVEdeclassified), NSA. The MX missile system

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elements of, 93–94 Global Command and Control System, 474–75 Global Strike Command, 474 Kennedy/McNamara assessment of, 271–75, 279–82, 302–3 launch-on-warning policy, 357, 359–62 military versus civilian control issue, 77–78, 87–88, 94, 125–26, 157–59, 165, 206–7, 355 National Strategic Response

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ban by Eisenhower, 199 testing of, 129 Igloos, 159, 165 Iklé, Fred Charles on Assured Destruction strategy, 434–35 cities bombed, study of, 119–22 launch-on-warning opposition by, 359 nuclear weapons safety reports by, 121–22, 190–96, 264–65 position of, xviii, 119, 359 India, nuclear threat from, 479, 481

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site, 60–64, 108, 236 Titan II explosion, 392–94 Titan II explosion broadcast, 418–19 Kissinger, Henry A. on abolition of weapons, 481–82 launch-on-warning support by, 359 as limited war proponent, 200, 355, 361 on nuclear strategy problems, 353–55 Titan II, opposition to, 351 Kistiakowsky, George B., 40

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, Laurence S., General, 253–54 Land mines, nuclear, 256–57 Lapierre, Dominique, 14 Launch Complexes, Titan II accidents. See entries under Titan II Launch Complex Launch-on-warning, 357, 359–62, 478 Lay, Bernie Jr., 148 Lay, Gary, 23–26 Leaf, Howard W., General, 377 Leavitt, Lloyd R., Jr., General biographical information, 212

The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

by Toby Ord · 24 Mar 2020 · 513pp · 152,381 words

have been several more steps at which nuclear retaliation could have been called off (indeed the two other incidents described here got further through the launch-on-warning process). But it was undeniably a close call: for if the satellite malfunction had reported the glinting sunlight as a hundred missiles instead of five

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Forces Treaty (INF). • Renew the New START arms control treaty, due to expire in February 2021. • Take US ICBMs off hair-trigger alert (officially called Launch on Warning). • Increase the capacity of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify nations are complying with safeguards agreements. • Work on resolving the key uncertainties in