In some ways, we are closer to nuclear war than we were in the 1950s and '60s. Then, at least, the nuclear forces were well controlled and well paid.
by Mario Seiglie
Russian military officers stared
wide-eyed at the glowing image on their radar screens: an incoming
missile on course to hit Moscow in 15 minutes.... One buzz went to
the three nuclear code briefcases assigned to President Boris Yeltsin
and his top two military officials. The officer carrying Yeltsin's
case rushed to the President and flipped it open. On an electronic
map inside, they saw a bright dot over the Norwegian Sea. Beneath the
map was a row of buttons, offering a menu of attack options on targets
in the U.S. On military bases across Russia, red lights flashed and
horns blared, alerting the troops in charge of the country's strategic
nuclear weapons to get ready to use them."
Perhaps this may sound like another
plot out of a Hollywood blockbuster movie-but it isn't. It actually
happened back on January 25, 1995. How are we all still alive? Let's
read on, as Newsweek reported in an article titled, "Nuclear
Disarray" in the May 19, 1997, pages 24-26.
"Yeltsin and his military commanders,
linked by phone, waited to hear whether an attack had been confirmed.
About 12 minutes after the mystery missile soared onto the radar screens,
military analysts could see that it was not heading for Russian territory.
It turned out to be a Norwegian scientific rocket sent aloft to observe
the aurora borealis. The Norwegians had dutifully notified the Russian
embassy in Oslo, but the word was never relayed to the military. 'For
a while,' says Sergei Yushenkov, a member of the Russian parliament's
Defense Committee, 'the world was on the brink of nuclear war.'"
Mix-ups Common
Such catastrophic mix-ups are becoming
more common. The same article mentions because of the lack of maintenance
of their nuclear arsenal, "the Russians might wrongly think they were
under attack from the West and fire their rockets. This danger has
greatly increased because the Russian early—warning system is not what
it used to be. It has lost major radar stations in the new nations
of Ukraine, Latvia and others. Some of its satellite-tracking stations
have gone to Ukraine, Georgia and Kazakhstan. The high command is now
partially blind, which increases its apprehensions, produces false
alarms and makes good decisions harder."
