Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

the treaty’s opponents argued that nuclear tests: See Eric Schmitt, “Experts Say Test Ban Could Impair Nuclear-Arms Safety,” New York Times, October 8, 1999. The National Academy of Sciences recently issued a report contradicting that argument. See The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty — Technical Issues for the United States, Committee on Reviewing and Updating Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, National Research Council of the National Academies (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2012).

the first “green” nuclear weapon: A 2007 report claimed that the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) would be “much more than ‘just green.’” The new weapon would reduce “potential harm to the environment and … improve worker safety.” Despite those lofty aims, President Obama eliminated funding for the RRW in 2009. See “Nuclear Warheads: The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program and the Life Extension Program,” Jonathan Medalia, CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, December 3, 2007, p. 20.

“a money grab”: Peurifoy interview.

a study by JASON scientists: See “Pit Lifetime,” JSR-06-335, MITRE Corporation, January 11, 2007.

“nonsense”: Agnew interview.

The Drell panel expressed concern about these warheads: “The safety issue,” it said, “is whether an accident during handling of an operational missile … might detonate the propellant which in turn could cause the [high explosives] in the warhead to detonate leading to dispersal of plutonium, or even the initiation of a nuclear yield beyond the four-pound criterion.” See “Report of the Panel on Nuclear Weapons Safety,” pp. 26–30. The quote can be found on page 29. For a more detailed look at the problem, see John R. Harvey and Stefan Michalowski, “Nuclear Weapons Safety: The Case of Trident,” Science and Global Security, Volume 4 (1994), pp. 261–337.

decrease the missile’s range by perhaps 4 percent: Peurifoy interview.

General Wilbur L. Creech had the same sort of lasting influence: See James C. Slife, Creech Blue: General Bill Creech and the Reformation of the Tactical Air Forces, 1978–1984 (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press and the College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education, 2004).

1,737 Air Force planes were shot down: See John T. Correll, “The Air Force in the Vietnam War,” Air Force Association, December 2004, p. 26.

the Air Force has lost fewer than 30 planes: This is my own estimate. The Air Force declined to provide me with a list of combat losses since 2003. “USAF Manned Aircraft Losses 1990–2002,” compiled by the Air Force Historical Research Agency, mentions seventeen fixed-wing aircraft shot down during that period — three in missions over the former Yugoslavia and fourteen in Operation Desert Storm. An additional three planes were shot down between 2003 and the fall of 2008, according to “Cost in Airframes,” by Michael C. Sirak, Air Force Magazine, October 27, 2008. After looking through the United States Air Force Class A Aerospace Mishap Reports for the years 2009 through 2012, I could not find another case of a manned, fixed-wing aircraft brought down by enemy fire. Perhaps a number of the crashes listed were, in fact, combat related. Nevertheless, the Air Force’s achievement is remarkable, given that its pilots had flown more than half a million sorties over Iraq and Afghanistan by the spring of 2008. That statistic comes from a chart in Tamar A. Mehuron and Heather Lewis, “The Mega Force,” Air Force Magazine, June 2008.

units were now given seventy-two hours of warning: The meaning of the words “no-notice” had clearly evolved over the years. According to a 2008 investigation of how the Air Force was managing its nuclear arsenal, “so-called ‘no-notice’ inspections do not begin until 72 hours after the unit is notified.” The investigation was headed by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger. See “Report of the Secretary of Defense Task Force on DoD Nuclear Weapons Management, Phase I: The Air Force’s Nuclear Mission,” September 2008, p. 37.

a captain or a colonel became the highest-ranking officer: Ibid., p. 27. According to a study of how the Air Force mistakenly shipped secret nuclear warhead fuzes to Taiwan instead of helicopter batteries, these officers were sometimes not only low ranked but unqualified for their jobs. “There are some leaders with little, dated, or no nuclear experience,” the study found, “who hold leadership positions in the Air Force nuclear enterprise.” That study is quoted in “The Unauthorized Movement of Nuclear Weapons and Mistaken Shipment of Classified Missile Components: An Assessment,” Michelle Spencer, Aadina Ludin, and Heather Nelson, USAF Counterproliferation Center, January 2012, p. 86.

half of the Air Force units responsible for nuclear weapons failed: Cited in Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus, “Missteps in the Bunker,” Washington Post, September 23, 2007.