It's been known widely for some time that on every British nuclear-armed sub, there's a safe, and in that safe another safe, and in that second safe a note from the Prime Minister commanding the sub on what to do in the event that the motherland should be wiped out in an attack while they were away.
That would mean it is impossible that they need some sort of special code, as if they did, that code would have to be accessible to them already, and then what is the point?
The thing that people don't seem to grasp here is that a single Trident missile is capable of carrying 10 warheads and is capable of striking 13,000 km away. This means that with a full compliment of missiles, a Vanguard submarine surfacing in Anchorage Alaska would be capable of striking any location in the US (and I believe possibly even Puerto Rico).
A false launch would essentially be capable of ending the world. It was estimated that a small-scale nuclear war of ~50 'Little Boy' air-bursts would have serious global complications. Being that a single warhead on the Trident can detonate at 500KT (25 times a 'little boy'), a single missile launch is equivalent to 5 megatons, all of which could be ground-burst and force more dust into the atmosphere. At 160 warheads and 80 megatons of destruction, the world is essentially over (as we know it) long before a retaliation has ever been launched.
People's response to this never grabs the situation. It always seems to be that people think a false launch could destroy a city like New York, when in reality a false launch from a ballistic missile submarine could easily end the world.
I realize the risks inherent in a lack of safeguards in the Trident program. However, being from the UK and knowing full well that in the event of a nuclear war, my entire homeland will be a nuclear wasteland (too many primary targets in a small area, I know for a fact I lived in between 3 primaries when I was growing up: major harbor, major RAF base, Army training base). So the UK has little chance to approve a nuclear launch after the attack, unless the authorization can be approved by a UK overseas base, fail-safes are just failures in the face of an attack. Fail-safes are intended to prevent unauthorized launches, however for the UK they're also going to prevent authorized launches.
I'm unsure what troubles me more, a poor ability to safeguard the system or the inability for justice if some psycho warlord decides to destroy my homeland.
The UK isn't in the US's situation where a nuclear launch can mean authorization can be granted by a chief of staff or high ranking general before everyone has been obliterated. The US would take potentially hours for a complete destruction, the UK on the other hand can easily be nuked into non-existence inside of a half-hour. A surprise attack doesn't leave much reaction time for the UK like it does the US.
It's not "trust us, we're scientists", it's "trust us, we've published extensive peer-reviewed evidence backing up what we're saying, so if you don't believe us you can pick an informed argument".
Nuclear winter is one of the more testable scenarios in global climate, since we have small-scale approximations whenever a big volcano erupts. There's been some good recent research at http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006JD008235.shtml
I am not a climate scientist, but I've been driven crazy enough by people's vague arguments to track down foundational papers around some of these issues. Please, all I want is some decent research links for any skeptical stuff, no more cheap shots.
Please, don't let your right-wing politics cloud your otherwise unmatched intelligence. Suspicion of the "establishment" is necessary, but it has its limits, lest we enter the kook territory.
The "007" thing makes sense from the standpoint of preventing rogue launches. It's not intended to prevent the missiles from being launched without command authorization. Instead, no single person has all the information needed to launch, so there must be at least two people in on it.
It is bizarre because what is the point in having a secret instruction to a submarine captain when his home country is completely and utterly destroyed by nukes. Consider that everyone that could possibly benefit from such an instruction are no longer in existence.
Right, but the actual mechanism of the secret-message-in-a-safe-in-a-safe makes no difference to the well-known game theory of nuclear retaliation. That is what makes it an odd practice. No other country does this because it serves no purpose.
Perhaps not - but I rather like the idea of four personal hand written notes in our four missile subs, which are hopefully never opened and destroyed when the PM changes.
I rather hope they say "Don't fire your missiles at anyone, you will just make things worse".
The point is to have the Prime Minister sit down and think about it and resolve to avoid such a situation. I thought Ira Glass missed this is as the most likely reason to have someone go through this exercise.
From the article:
"..nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock key. There was no other security on the bomb itself."
By the way, it's a freaking submarine.
Perspective: I lock a gun's trigger with a bike lock, and then place it in a safe. The safe is inside a bank vault.
If I do manage to steal the gun, then I can pick the lock and use it.
If I do manage to steal the arming key, then I can convince the crew to launch the missile.
The W177's were secured with bike locks ... inside a reinforced concrete bunker surrounded by razor wire and patrolled by armed guards with orders to use lethal force to stop anyone trying to gain access to them without proper authorization.
Just like the USSR's land-based ICBMs didn't have PAL codes -- instead they were guarded by a platoon of KGB troops who didn't know how to launch the missile, but sure knew how to stop the strategic rocket forces' crew from launching the missile without orders.
Folks on HN are predisposed to thinking about automating security procedurally, but seem to miss the point that military organizations have been automating security through process carried out by human bodies for centuries, if not millenia; all they need is enough obedient soldiers with guns and orders not to allow [X] to happen without authorization [Y] or their ass is on the line to ensure that the bombs are de facto secure.
Well, not necessarily. A rogue commander could probably persuade his subordinates that he was authorized to use the bicycle key. If someone in a position of apparent authority claims that they will accept responsibility, subordinates will usually go along with that.
The WE.177 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WE.177 -- note corrected designation) was a free-fall H-bomb, carried on Vulcan and then Tornado bombers, and retired by 1998; you can see details of the 'bike lock' security on that wikipedia page. As such, it was stored on RAF bases and there are extensive procedures in place to ensure that a rogue officer can't order a deployment without it coming down the chain of command. (See also "Dr Strangelove".)
The WE.177 was not a sub-launched missile. The Royal Navy's Trident D5s (which come from the same maintenance pool as the US Navy's missiles) are; they do not, as far as I know, use bike locks: if they do, so do the USN's D5s.
> However, the Royal Navy argued that its officers could be trusted and: "It would be invidious to suggest... that senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders."
Even by the standards of a world gone mad, these people are #@!%ing lunatics.
It was reportedly 00000000, the source for this is a former US missile launch officer of some sort named Bruce Blair. Google him and the zeros, plenty of references, although I don't know if it's ever been confirmed by documents.
Actually 00000000, according to Bruce Blair's first-hand account. He has been one of the go-to authors on nuclear weapons control issues for many years. (Received a MacArthur Prize for it, in fact.)
"It shouldn't be hard to arm a nuke. It should be hard to get access to it.
If you stole one any competant EE could rewire the whole thing to do what he needs anyway. Those inclined to steal a nuke would have this know-how; they wouldn't be your average bank robber or shoe-bomber terrorist.
Posted by: Savik at November 21, 2007 2:34 PM"
Maybe back in the day a competent EE could rewire, but the modern arming mechanisms are ultra-sophisticated.
ultr-sophisticated, but still any locking mechanism on nuke can be overcomed by sufficiently motivated adversary. And anyone who can steal the nuke is sufficiently motivated, no matter how ultra-sophisticated your lock is.
Edit: and overcoming any kind of locking mechanism on nuke is certainly cheaper than building one yourself. What most people seem to forget is that problem with building nuclear weapons lies with logistics, not technical expertise.
Agreed. All the locking mechanisms and codes are to prevent accidental and non-authorized triggering. After that you have to depend on guys with guns for security.
Wow, that's really interesting. I think that Britain is firmly in the wrong on this one. That places a lot of trust in a lot of individuals hands, which I don't necessarily have a problem with because of a number of psychological factors related to their employment in the army, but that doesn't discount someone infiltrating the systems and activating the missiles.
The US Navy's SSBNs work the same way. A second strike deterrent force by definition has to have decentralized launch authority. The backstop is that no single officer can launch the missiles, it takes joint action -- and the officers are carefully screened before being put in that position. One rogue sub officer? Maybe. Enough of them to overpower the rest of the crew and carry out an unauthorized launch? Very unlikely, and begs the question of why.
That's fine, as long as the warheads could not be detonated it does not matter where they go.
The point is that you can arm a British nuke in 98 with a bicycle lock key and no tamper-proof mechanism was there. So if you got a warhead detonation was easy. In the US having a warhead is pointless, you need the codes or the bomb is worthless.
You're 100% correct. According to the news reports at the time the transport was characterized as being a "mistake", i.e. human error. I don't know the intricacy of warhead arming etc., but another article on CNN talks about codes being handled insecurely: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/24/missile.error/
That would mean it is impossible that they need some sort of special code, as if they did, that code would have to be accessible to them already, and then what is the point?