
The button that isn’t - danso
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/12/15/button-isnt/
======
madaxe_again
The soviet setup for launch control is similar to the US - decentralised,
manual actions all over the place to make it happen.

Visited a soviet silo just outside of Pervomais'k, Ukraine (thoroughly
recommend a visit if you find yourself in that neck of the woods, you can sit
atop a Satan missile and wave your cowboy hat until a burly Ukrainian tells
you to get off before he shoots you) - it's a two-key system, with two
buttons, on opposite sides of, well, a really tiny room. While one could reach
both buttons and keys simultaneously, the idea was that the keys would be
carried by separate people - however in practice, they both hung from a peg on
the back of the chair, meaning that someone could have theoretically initiated
a launch singlehandedly. Theoretically, because the other fun fact revealed
was that most of the time they were nothing like launch ready, and perennially
struggled with equipment failure.

Oh, and don't forget that the super-secret launch code for minuteman missiles
across the US was... uh, 00000000, for several decades.

~~~
Phlarp
>Oh, and don't forget that the super-secret launch code for minuteman missiles
across the US was... uh, 00000000, for several decades.

I believe this was the combination to the locks on the launch bunker access
doors, not the actual launch codes.

Either way-- laughable security for the military's crown jewels.

~~~
maaku
> Either way-- laughable security for the military's crown jewels.

The military would disagree. The all-zeros combination code was chosen on
purpose because it was felt that having a code at all was a reduction in
security since the code revelation procedure became a single point of failure.
These aspects of the nuclear security system were designed by politicians, and
weren't exactly the best of ideas, so the military did what they needed to
comply with the law but keep the nuclear arsenal secure _and_ available.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Indeed, the military felt strongly that it was reasonable to increase the
chance of causing Armageddon by accident, in order to hold sacrosanct their
ability to cause Armageddon on purpose, and resented attempts to reverse that
equation.

It's weird how you say that like it was wise instead of horrifically insane,
though.

~~~
mikeash
They generally had great trust in their people, and didn't think the risk of
someone deliberately disobeying orders and using a nuclear weapon was high.
Meanwhile, they believed that the Soviets were looking for an opportunity to
strike, and that the best and only realistic way to prevent a Soviet strike
was to present them with certain devastating retaliation. They never planned
to _cause_ Armageddon, only have the capability to respond to the other guy
causing it in such a way that they'd never want to cause it.

The scary thing about the Cold War was that the participants generally had the
best of intentions (aside from a few people like Curtis LeMay, and they never
really got presented with the opportunity to express their evil side) but
disaster could have easily happened anyway, purely by accident.

And I really shouldn't put this in the past tense. All of this stuff is still
there. We all seem to have just decided to collectively pretend that MAD went
away when the USSR dissolved, even though there are still thousands of
missiles and nuclear warheads ready to wreck civilization at a moment's
notice.

~~~
onnoonno
> And I really shouldn't put this in the past tense. All of this stuff is
> still there. We all seem to have just decided to collectively pretend that
> MAD went away when the USSR dissolved, even though there are still thousands
> of missiles and nuclear warheads ready to wreck civilization at a moment's
> notice.

Fully agreed. There seems to be this weird mode of thinking for most people 'I
choose to ignore the bad stuff so that I am happier'. But the end result here
might be exactly the opposite, the worst case.

For example, it is scary how lightheartedly people talk about 'war with
Russia' in context of the current Ukraine crisis. Regardless on what political
side one is, avoiding direct confrontation of nuclear powers should be the
main concern.

Rather than all the talk and fuss and whatnot about more-or-less meaningful
social justice causes, I would rather like to see a movement to put nuclear
weapons into 'cold storage' and a verified international protocol to
continuously check that they are there.

Seeing that it is unrealistic to have full disarmament, this would at least
greatly reduce the risk.

------
captainmuon
Reminds me of a large particle physics experiment I worked on. One of the
detectors had a critical flaw, IIRC the output voltage of the detector modules
was proportional to the number of particles passing through it. At every
readout, it was reset to 0. Now, if you didn't read out the modules often
enough (every few seconds), they would fry themselves. The problem wasn't
noticed until the readout system crashed and a couple of modules were
destroyed.

When the bug was presented in a meeting, there was one guy who insisted that
we install a big red button to shutdown the system. There was even discussion
on whether it should have a little lid or not. When that guy left the meeting
early, they briefly considered to install a fake button.

In the end, what happened is that they built a "heartbeat" system that just
zeros out the modules every second or so. The information in the modules is
lost, but since there are millions of collisions each second, this had
virtually no impact on data taking. But it prevented damage when the readout
system crashed again.

They also made a little GUI in the control room showing a beating heart
probably just to calm people down :-).

~~~
antognini
Interesting. I've observed at a number of telescopes and they all have a big
red STOP button that will shut down the telescope immediately. I've only had
to use it once. The telescope was poorly designed and it was possible to run
it into its hard limit (you could basically run it into the ground). If you do
that you have to stop it because the tracking motors will continue to try to
drive the telescope into the ground.

The only exception was the Large Binocular Telescope, which is one of the
largest telescopes around (even the largest, depending on how you define it).
But there a lot more thought was put into the design so you wouldn't be able
to run the telescope into the ground even if you tried. (It also helps that
they have a dedicated night assistant whose job it is to point the telescope
and make sure that the observers don't do anything stupid.)

------
binarymax
I am reminded of the opening scene in War Games, when the two officers both
need to perform a specific series of actions together to launch the missile.
It gave an excellent perspective on not only what was probably the actual
process, but the ethical dilemma of one of the officers.

And then there is the heretical "G.I. Joe: Retaliation", where all the world
leaders are in one room with their breifcases containing big red buttons.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Funny you mention Wargames. That scene was probably the only realistic scene
in the movie. They got that suspiciously good. The one before it, where he
arrives at the LCF and it's a disguised farmhouse was idiotic.

~~~
throwaway_xl5
In England we have defense facilities disguised as farmhouses. We don't have
land-based missiles but this [0] is/was a government bunker from which launch
orders could be given. I wondered if you meant idiotic in the sense of
unrealistic for America, or as a bad idea tactically?

[0][http://www.secretnuclearbunker.com/](http://www.secretnuclearbunker.com/)

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Sorry, I meant the US ones are nothing like that. It was totally inaccurate.
In the USA, all the farmers/ranchers know where the stuff is.

"Excuse me, we're looking for Sierra 7." "Yeah, it's down this road for a
mile, then left on 127."

And the Soviets wouldn't have been fooled either. So they look like military
installations.

~~~
maaku
It's not about hiding the facilities from locals, it's about hiding them from
satellites. Or at least providing enough uncertainty that the enemy doesn't
know for certain how many or which installations are where.

More morbidly, in a first strike scenario you want the enemy to waste nukes on
actual farmhouses it couldn't tell for certain were launch facilities or not.
Then even if no facilities are missed (something you would be hoping for),
that's still fewer nukes to be dropped on cities and conventional military
installations.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Whatever the reasoning, the USAF didn't do the farmhouse thing. We did the big
fence, nasty signs, and heavily armed guards.

------
nabla9
Another misconception is that it's impossible to launch nukes without nuclear
launch codes U.S president carries with him.

The president's emergency satchel (nuclear football) or cold codes (plastic
card called the biscuit) contain codes to identify the president and
__authorize__ nuclear attack. They are codes for authorization. They don't
contain codes that are needed to execute the attack. There is also two-man
rule in place. Secretary of Defense must confirm the authorization.

------
mkrdouble
If you're into this kind of thing, then I cannot recommend the group blog,
"Arms Control Wonk" enough!

[http://armscontrolwonk.com/](http://armscontrolwonk.com/)

It contains some seriously in-depth analysis of both current and historic
nuclear weapons development, with a strong bend toward the diplomatic and
political side of things.

------
ufmace
The linked blog usually has great in-depth content, but I think this one could
be TLDR'ed as "No, for obvious reasons, there isn't actually a big red button
that launches a mass nuclear strike. There's a massive infrastructure devoted
to making sure they can be launched when they're needed, but won't ever be
launched accidentally."

We could at least make an attempt to get into how making a strike would
require planning exactly what targets to attack, what weapons to attack them
with, and exactly when to launch which weapons, all depending on the political
situation and what we're actually trying to accomplish. The idea of a big
button on the President's desk to launch a strike is then pretty absurd.

~~~
mikeash
Note that until 1962, there was a single nuclear attack plan that was to be
followed in the event of all-out war, with no variations available. That meant
that, for example, China would get a full nuclear strike no matter what the
political situation was at the time, and if China had declared neutrality, the
only options were to bomb the crap out of them regardless, or come up with a
completely new plan on the fly, which was just about impossible.

Since 1962, the plans had built in variations, so that e.g. it would be
possible to call for an all-out strike with a hold on China, and all the
participants knew what to do for that case.

But still, all the planning was done in advance. US nuclear war planning
assumed that we'd be retaliating for a strike on us, and thus time was of the
essence. Strategic Air Command had a goal of getting all of their strike
bombers airborne within 15 minutes of a warning, and they could do it. There
was, of course, no actual big red button, but conceptually it was pretty
close. Ordering an attack would have been a matter of authenticating the
order-giver, and saying, launch the pre-planned attack.

Edit: I should probably link to Wikipedia's treatment of said plan:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_P...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Integrated_Operational_Plan)

~~~
ufmace
Thanks, that's actually some interesting info. I was under the impression that
the SIOP was a list of pre-planned strike patterns/plans, and whoever had the
authority to order a strike would select one based on the political
circumstances. Is that not the case?

It's also a little surprising, though believable, that there was only one
dedicated emergency attack plan up to 1962.

~~~
mikeash
Wikipedia says that the post-1962 version had five options:

1\. Soviet nuclear missile sites, bomber airfields, and submarine tenders.

2\. Other military sites away from cities, such as air defenses.

3\. Military sites near cities.

4\. Command-and-control centers.

5\. Full-scale "spasm" attack.

So, sounds more or less as you describe. The first one apparently didn't have
anything like that.

------
platz
I thought there was some russian commander who avoided a direct command to
launch missles, and it turned out the command to launch was a mistake made by
some other russian entity relying on faulty data. Seems as close to a "button"
scenario as one could've had.

 __edit - point being that, at least in this case, in 1983, it contradicts the
claim in the article that these "systems aren't centralized", and "requires a
lot more activity, spread out across a vast geographical area". I'm sure it's
better in current times.

 __*edit - oh, I thought he had the power to launch himself - I guess it
changes slightly if his job was only "to report" up the chain of command.

~~~
HillRat
There was also the B-59 incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis[1], when a
Soviet sub -- its officers exhausted, out of contact with Moscow, and
uncertain if war had broken out -- almost launched a nuclear torpedo against
US forces.

XO Vasily Arkhipov, who had also been XO on the infamous K-19, was the only
officer to oppose launching the sub's nuclear payload, and since launch
required positive agreement from the Captain, XO and political officer,
Arkhipov literally stopped World War Three by himself.

[1]([http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/](http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/))

~~~
Terr_
I wonder, are there any stories where the "Political Officer" is actually the
hero rather than the villain?

~~~
HillRat
Well, I'm sure the Soviets printed quite a few. :) Actually, the role of the
Soviet political officer ( _zampolit_ ) was by then subordinated to the
commanding officer -- political officers were expected to function as field
officers (pilots, artillery officers, and so on), in addition to political
education, morale-raising, and individual counseling. They also had specific
authority over Communist Party members within units, who basically operated
something like senior NCOs. In practice, I think, the _zampolit_ system
operated relatively smoothly -- the Red Army was never able to get rid of the
political officers (Zhukov tried, and even he couldn't do it!), but they were
able to effectively defang the position by being orthodox Communists
themselves, and by insisting that political education not compromise practical
competency.

~~~
Intermernet
>not compromise practical competency.

There's a quote from _The Last Sentry_ [1] regarding this:

"On major combatant vessels, the political officer was third in command,
following the captain and his _starpom_ (short for _stariy pomoshnik_ , or
senior assistant), who was the equivalent of an executive officer in the U.S.
Navy. The _zampolit_ was required to qualify as an underway watch officer like
any other officer on the ship and so had to have some operational competence."

I'm pretty sure that training and working with the regular crew would weaken
the dedication to "The Party" over time.

[1]:
[https://books.google.com.au/books?id=pThlAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT15&o...](https://books.google.com.au/books?id=pThlAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT15&ots=sXUZZ7-H9E&dq=zampolit&pg=PT15#v=onepage&q=zampolit&f=false)

------
colechristensen
Did anyone ever actually believe that there was a fire-all-ze-missiles button?
Even without specific knowledge, a reasonable person must realize that such
things have to consist of complicated logistics and multiple levels of
redundant failsafes both human and machine.

~~~
edmccard
>Did anyone ever actually believe that there was a fire-all-ze-missiles
button?

Well, a lot of us believed that there were only two possibilities for nuclear
war: either no missiles got fired, or they all did -- either in an escalating
pattern of strike and counterstrike, or in one big "let's knock them out
before they get us" attack.

So I guess a "big red button" is as good a metaphor as any for the sort of
on/off, all-or-nothing situation we were afraid of.

~~~
smacktoward
A strategy that nuclear strategist Herman Kahn
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Kahn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Kahn))
memorably described as a "wargasm."

------
jacquesm
Nukes or nurse?

[http://500daysasunder.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/screen-
sho...](http://500daysasunder.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/screen-
shot-2012-10-04-at-12-17-56-pm-e1349368088807.png?w=694)

~~~
grimman
Where's this from?

~~~
jacquesm
Land of confusion by Genesis.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pkVLqSaahk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pkVLqSaahk)

------
ck2
There is also rampant cheating by the people being trained to be in charge of
nuclear weapons, both air force and navy:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=nuclear+cheating+scandal](https://www.google.com/search?q=nuclear+cheating+scandal)

Nice warm comforting thought.

Even better is how they solved cheating - they stopped giving them grades:

[http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/334501037/to-stop-cheating-
nuc...](http://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/334501037/to-stop-cheating-nuclear-
officers-ditch-the-grades)

Yes, those are the people in charge of nuclear weapons, how safe do you feel
now?

~~~
Karunamon
Unchanged.

The job required to fire a missile is somewhat prestigious but relatively
simple - the command comes in, execute a pre-planned sequence of events that
have been drilled into you by that point.

At that point it's no different from following the assembly steps for a
hamburger at a fast food restaurant.. though with much greater consequences
than a stomachache afterwards :)

~~~
ck2
If they don't have the morals not to cheat in the MILITARY, what makes you
think they are trustworthy to consider the consequences of pushing the button
on a nuclear missile?

Or are they just going to belittle the "enemy" in their minds like they are
taught and then an hour later twice the number of nuclear warheads come
crashing down on us from overseas in return.

Not their problem because they were "just obeying orders" and they are under a
hardened site.

Kind of like how armed drone operators don't think about what they are are
doing until months later when they get PTSD when they find out they killed
innocent people

~~~
smacktoward
The problem is that none of those people in the silos expect they'll ever be
called upon to _actually launch_ those missiles. Ever since the Soviet Union
collapsed, they've been a weapon without a plausible mission.

This has two pernicious effects. First, it leads the people in the silos to
think to themselves: if none of this really matters, why _not_ cheat? It's all
theater anyway, right? Why put your career prospects at risk over something
that's pure theater?

And second, it means that the best and the brightest Air Force servicemembers,
the ones who want to wear stars on their shoulders someday, don't want to
serve in the silos to begin with. Promotions in the military flow from service
in real wars, not imaginary ones. So the people who end up in the silos are
the ones who can't get stationed somewhere (anywhere!) else -- and that's
exactly the type of person who's going to be tempted to cheat to get ahead in
the first place.

------
fubarred
Meta: automate things that are frequent, not things that are risky; hence: no
WOMPR, Wing Attack Plan R or "Big Red Button."

------
felipesabino
Am I the only one that immediately remembered radiolab's Buttons Not Buttons
episode [1] ? They had a nice bit about the "cut the heart out" part and how
it contrasts with how easy it is today to start a nuclear attack

[1] [http://www.radiolab.org/story/buttons-not-
buttons/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/buttons-not-buttons/)

~~~
coldpie
It's mentioned in like the third paragraph of the article...

------
shawabawa3
Why did the title get changed? It used to be the article title "The button
that isn’t"

