The Bulletin Online
By Pavel Podvig | 13 November 2007
At first glance, the U.S. military's response to the incident at Minot Air Base involving the transportation of six nuclear warheads across the United States was reasonably thorough and harsh--three colonel-rank commanders were relieved of their positions, the bomber wing at Minot was decertified from its wartime missions, and a number of air force personnel lost their certifications. More action will probably come in the next few months. Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked the Defense Science Board to review the incident, and the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill will require the Defense and Energy departments to submit a report detailing what procedures and policies they use when handling nuclear weapons.
But a closer look at the investigation doesn't give much hope that Washington will learn the proper lessons from the incident. The U.S. military is clearly at the "scapegoat" stage of its understanding of what happened. It claims that the accident was caused by human error; according to a Defense representative, it was "a failure to follow procedures, procedures which have proven to be sound." The irony of this statement seemed to elude the official (and much of the press, for that matter).
Once scrutiny of the mishap extends beyond the U.S. Air Force, people will certainly go beyond the simplistic "human error" explanations and start asking whether those "sound procedures" are the problem. While this approach would represent welcome progress in understanding the problems that made the incident possible, it's unlikely to address the root causes of the issue. Focusing on procedures will most likely result in those procedures being modified, safeguards and checks being strengthened, personnel training being improved, and so on--something the military is usually trusted to do well. But all of this has been tried before and hasn't worked.
According to a 1998 U.S. Air Force document obtained by Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, the problems with proper handling of nuclear weapons were recognized a long time ago. That document talks about "manpower shortfalls" and an "incapacity to provide adequate nuclear weapon security." It even mentions "efforts . . . to shore up nuclear security" that were centered at Minot. As we can see today, those efforts weren't exactly successful. And I don't think we can expect new efforts to strengthen nuclear weapon handling procedures to be any better. In fact, even the Pentagon's leadership seems to recognize that it can promise only so much. Speaking about the incident, Gates said that "it would be silly" to expect that this kind of accident would never happen again. (Think about that--in effect, the defense secretary said that we shouldn't expect the U.S. military to guarantee the security of its nuclear warheads.)
Technically speaking, Gates is right: No one can promise that nuclear weapon security procedures will be infallible in all imaginable circumstances. The question is what should be done about it.
Since the problem, as most experts seem to agree, is the lack of proper attention to all things nuclear in the current U.S. military, a possible approach would be to force the military to take nuclear weapons seriously again. But this would be swimming against the tide: The trend in military affairs today is away from nuclear weapons, which seem unsuitable for any realistic mission. Besides, as the 1998 air force document demonstrates, there are limits to that approach.
Another way to deal with the issue is to recognize that the incident at Minot is a sign of a deeper process and that short of starting a new Cold War, no amount of organizational change could provide the military with the sense of mission required to handle nuclear weapons with the attention they deserve. If this is the case, there's a better way for the defense secretary to promise that similar accidents will not happen again without looking "silly": He would need to remove nuclear weapons from operation--the proper response to the incident.
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Comments
The world would be a very barren place if we got rid of everything that had a problem (whether perceived or real). He is absolutely correct to state that it would be silly to think ANY process could be absolutely 100% guaranteed to NEVER fail. (Personally the words "ludicrous, assinine, delusional, and pipe-dream" are what come to mind but that's just me.) That includes arms treaties, promises not to build nukes, bringing on utopia through unilateral disarmament or what have you. I don't think anybody would disagree that it would be great if we didn't need nukes but it's a fantasy. Always will be as should be perfectly obvious.
Removing nuclear weapons from operation would do what exactly? Should this be done unilaterally? What about the Russians, French, British, and Chinese forces? Would they get a pass? Believe it or not, these things happen to all the nuclear powers and will happen again...they only difference is their severity. We shouldn't ban matches because they could start a fire. Likewise, getting rid of nuclear weapons because a set of them were flown from one place to another improperly, is hardly a good solution. How many incidents have happened but not been reported by the Russians, Chinese, etc?
As a submarine officer, I have been associated with my share of incidents involving the nuclear plant. While none have ever been as severe as the incident at the Minot air base, serious repercussions have happened. The standard navy policy, and I am sure the same applies in this incident, is to have a third party conduct a DETAILED investigation of the incident and then have a critique (or fact finding) session with all applicable parties. What we find is that a lot of the time, there is just a human error that is the primary culprit. In those cases that there is a procedural error, the correction is rapidly made and massive amounts of training is conducted, fleet-wide depending on the scope.
There are several occasions that procedures have been used only to discover, after years, there is major flaw in the process. This may well be the situation for the missile mishap.
Just because this mishap happened after the 1998 report, does not mean that the flaws identified were not repaired. How many mishaps have there ever been? I think the track record shows the detail that the military puts into security.
I will agree that one mishap with a nuclear weapon is larger that all the other mishaps combined, but we have our elected officials and the military officers appointed by them. We need to put our trust in the system, because as painful as it is sometimes, it works.
If these incidents happen routinely, then there is problem, but to conduct knee-jerk reactions usually leads to worse outcomes.
To JF Cooper: It will decrease the probability of nuclear weapons being misplaced, misused etc. Russia and others should certainly do the same, but there are benefits of doing it unilaterally as well.
It is, of course, possible that incidents like this happened in Russia or China, although I would doubt it - they took their weapons seriously. Anyway, why would it matter?
Pavel:
[... Another way to deal with the issue is to recognize that the incident at Minot is a sign of a deeper process and that short of starting a new Cold War, no amount of organizational change could provide the military with the sense of mission required to handle nuclear weapons with the attention they deserve. If this is the case, there's a better way for the defense secretary to promise that similar accidents will not happen again without looking "silly": He would need to remove nuclear weapons from operation--the proper response to the incident…]
Hey, if we’re taking a vote on getting rid of the Pentagon, I vote for including the Internal Revenue Service with it. Great satirical article; sage advice.
Frank Shuler
USA
To Rich: I have no doubts that after the investigation the military will come up with some organizational measures, new training plans, etc. But eventually, if people don't think that nuclear weapons have serious mission, if handling them is becoming a dead end in your career, there is only so much all those investigations, disciplinary measures, and training can do.
As people who know (or at least should have known) told me, there had been no incidents like this before. Which is understandable - during the cold war nuclear weapons were serious business. They attracted the best people who paid attention to what they are doing etc. Apparently, this is not the case anymore. The fact that the Air Force knew that it has a problem and the Minot incident still happened does tell you that the flaws were not repaired. My point is that we should not expect that they will be this time.
Pavel, I stand corrected. You’ve made your point.
Frank Shuler
USA
True and not true about the price tage of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are very expensive to create, but very cheap to maintain.
How is "the trend" away from nuclear weapons when the US declines to rule out the use of a nuclear weapon (CNEP) against a non-nuclear adversary (Iran)?
Reko:
In fairness, I don’t ever remember a direct threat by the United States against Iran that mentioned the use of nuclear weapons. The only comments by our government are that all options, including military, are “on the table” in the negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program. I guess the assumption this would include a preemptive nuclear strike is up to interpretation.
Frank Shuler
USA