Command and Control

France is adding new aircraft and submarines: For an overview of the world’s nuclear powers, the size of their arsenals, and their modernization schemes, see Ian Kearns, “Beyond the United Kingdom: Trends in the Other Nuclear Armed States,” Discussion Paper 1 of the BASIC Trident Commission, November 2011. The French weapons program is discussed on page 20.

The United Kingdom… approximately 160 warheads: An additional sixty-five warheads are kept in storage, for a total of 225. Cited in Richard Norton-Taylor, “Britain’s Nuclear Arsenal is 225 Warheads, Reveals William Hague,” Guardian (UK), May 26, 2010.

China is thought to have about 240 nuclear weapons: Cited in Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, “Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2011,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1, 2011, p. 81. At the moment, there is general agreement that China is increasing the size of its arsenal. But assertions that China has three thousand warheads hidden underground seem unlikely. For China’s traditional policy of minimum deterrence, see M. Taylor Fravel and Evan S. Medeiros, “China’s Search for Assured Retaliation: The Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Strategy and Force Structure,” International Security, vol. 35, no. 2 (Fall 2010), pp. 7–44. For a much different interpretation of its nuclear policies, see Bret Stephens, “How Many Nukes Does China Have?” Wall Street Journal, October 24, 2011.

an “underground Great Wall”: See Stephens, “How Many Nukes,” and William Wan, “Georgetown Students Shed Light on China’s Tunnel System for Nuclear Weapons,” Washington Post, November 29, 2011.

North Korea may already have half a dozen nuclear weapons: See Mary Beth Nikitin, “North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: Technical Issues,” CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, April 3, 2013, p. 4.

The yield of North Korea’s first weapon test: Cited in ibid., p. 15.

“It could go off if a rifle bullet hit it”: Quoted in Sagan, Limits of Safety, p. 266. The quote originally appeared in Gary Milhollin, “Building Saddam Hussein’s Bomb,” New York Times, March 8, 1992.

The ballistic-missile submarines in the Russian fleet: For the deterioration of Russian strategic forces and the potentially destabilizing effects, see David E. Mosher, Lowell H. Schwartz, David R. Howell, and Lynn E. Davis, Beyond the Nuclear Shadow: A Phased Approach for Improving Nuclear Safety and U.S. — Russian Relations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2003).

the launch of a small research rocket by Norway: For the story of this false alarm, which occurred years after the end of the Cold War, see David Hoffman, “Cold War Doctrines Refuse to Die,” Washington Post, March 15, 1998.

The greatest risk of nuclear war now lies in South Asia: That is my personal view, and unfortunately, a great deal has been written that supports it. Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), edited by Scott D. Sagan, contains two particularly good essays: “Revisionist Ambitions, Conventional Capabilities, and Nuclear Instability: Why Nuclear South Asia Is Not Like Cold War Europe,” by S. Paul Kapur, and “The Evolution of Pakistani and Indian Doctrine,” by Sagan. Another fine book is Feroz Hassan Khan’s Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford: Stanford Security Series, 2012). Paul Bracken’s The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics (New York: Times Books, 2012) has a provocative chapter on the risk of nuclear war in South Asia. Bracken has been studying the importance of command and control for more than thirty years. The work of a British academic, Shaun Gregory, seems especially relevant at the moment. Before investigating Pakistan’s efforts to maintain its nuclear weapons securely, Gregory wrote a book about nuclear weapons accidents and one about the command and control of NATO forces. I learned much during my conversation with Gregory and from his writing, especially “The Security of Nuclear Weapons in Pakistan,” Pakistan Security Research Unit, Brief Number 22, November 18, 2007; “The Terrorist Threat to Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons,” CTC Sentinel, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, July 2009, pp. 1–4; and “Terrorist Tactics in Pakistan Threaten Nuclear Weapons Safety,” CTC Sentinel, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, June 2011, pp. 4–7.

Pakistan has doubled the size of its arsenal since 2006: Cited in Bracken, The Second Nuclear Age, p. 162.

It now has about 100 nuclear weapons: Estimates range from 90 to 110. Cited in Paul K. Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues,” CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, March 19, 2013, p. 5.

a bold attack on the headquarters of the Pakistan army: See Gregory, “Terrorist Tactics in Pakistan,” pp. 5–6.

Another attack penetrated a naval aviation base: Ibid., pp. 6–7.