by Eyck Freymann
Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"
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I have always felt that it is impossible for a nation to properly secure thousands of nuclear warheads. At any given time, we have these weapons on submarines, in aircraft, and in foreign bases. I do not pretend to be an expert on classified weapons access privileges. What I can do is determine from the information available that it might be possible for a determined and clever enemy to access a nuclear warhead. Although this may be unlikely, there is no doubt that a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists would mean obliteration of a major American city.
Nuclear proliferation is the issue of the day, one that far transcends the "Global War on Terror." Russia has piles of loose fissile material that can be used to construct a bomb with relative ease. Pakistani weapon dealer A.Q. Khan was able to in effect reconstruct a bomb for his nation after once visiting some French nuclear facilities.
The spread of nuclear technology has the potential to grow very fast and spiral out of control. Let's act now so it doesn't blow up in our faces.
3 comments:
This is just a bizarre story. I have no idea how to respond.
The threat is real, but a greater threat is a terrorist obtaining nuclear material and making a "dirty bomb," which mostly contaminates an area. Dangerous after its detonation and expensive to clean up, detonating one on mass transit or in high-traffic areas could be tragic. But the threat is very real, mostly because a nuclear power, militarily, can't afford to give up it's missiles and not expect an attack. It's time to invest in a Strategic Defense Initiative
Allow me to strongly disagree.
Nuclear arms in the hands of stable nations are a weird and modern addition to the strategic canon. After the US developed the bomb in 1945 (and before the Russians followed in 1949) we thought the world was going our way. Russia was trying to seize Eastern Europe, but surely our infinitely superior firepower would allow us to get our way.
The Truman administration learned the hard way that this is not the case. Something about the unimaginable devastation caused by nuclear weaponry very quickly limits its use to deterrent status. In other words, there comes a time when using the bombs is out of the question because it would result in unacceptable losses.
Our weapons system is purely placebo. If we were involved in a conflict with Russia, it would make no difference to them if we had ten bombs or ten thousand. The nation could not survive without its ten largest cities.
Of course, the potential uses of these weapons is becoming increasingly confusing in an era in which we are fighting not a nation with recognized boundaries but rather a multinational idealogical group. The focus in terms of winning this so-called "War on Terror" should (in it's military aspect) be on precision weaponry rather than nuclear. We know that al Qaeda is operating in north-east Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Can we nuke them? No.
If we really want to win the "War on Terror" then we should pursue dialogue. We need the help and cooperation of Arab states such as Iran and Syria if we are to limit the spread of terror.
Iran is a moderate people represented by a radical government. Syria is similar. If we continue to be hostile and uninterested in dialogue, we can always expect these states to spawn terrorist cells.
The way of the future is not in war between states, it is in cooperation between them. I wish the Bush administration had understood this.
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