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| About CDI > Staff > Bruce Blair > Selected Publications |
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Weapons and Y2K "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" PBS interview with Bruce Blair and John Hamre December 30, 1999 MARGARET WARNER: When the Y2K computer problem first arose, there was immediate concern that it could have disastrous consequences for the world's nuclear arsenals. Five countries are known to have long-range nuclear weapons -- and other nations also are suspected of having them. But the vast majority of the world's long-range nukes belong to Russia, with 7500 -- and the U.S., with 7300. To ensure that a New Year's computer glitch doesn't trigger an accidental launch, the two governments have set up a joint missile warning center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. As the New Year rolls in, Russian and American military officers will be sitting side by side at computer consoles, monitoring missile launch activity around the world. For more on the potential dangers, and what's been done to avoid them, we turn to Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre and Bruce Blair, a former Air Force nuclear missile launch officer who's written widely about the command and control of nuclear weapons. He's now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. And, Bruce Blair, sketch out for us first of all, what is the scenario for a computer glitch causing some sort of an accidental launch? Fears of Y2K creating false information BRUCE BLAIR: Well, it's hard to predict in advance clearly. These sort of scenarios develop in unusual ways, and they're hard to anticipate, but the basic concern is that Y2K may cause Russian leaders to believe that they are under missile attack. The Y2K could, in principle, in theory, cause a false alarm in the Russian network of space and ground-based sensors that leads to misleading indications of an attack on Russia, which could lead -- might lead -- to a bad call on the part of the top leadership. A situation like this actually occurred in 1995 when a Norwegian rocket, a weather rocket, was fired toward the North Pole and triggered a false alarm in the Russian early warning network that actually led to the notification of President Yeltsin and the activation of the famous nuclear suitcases -- and an emergency conference among himself and his top nuclear advisers that lasted about eight minutes. Now, these scenarios or false alarm -- whether triggered by Y2K or any other source -- and there are many sources in Russia today, given the deterioration of their early warning and control system -- are a matter of concern to us because Russia maintains thousands of nuclear weapons on high alert, as does the United States -- we haven't changed our Cold War practices -- and has the strategy to fire them on warnings, i.e., as soon as possible after detecting, using satellites and ground-based radars, detecting an apparent attack on Russia's shores. MARGARET WARNER: But, just to understand, it does still take a human to make that decision. BRUCE BLAIR: Yes. There's still humans in the loop, and there's, to my knowledge and to the best of my analysis, there is absolutely no plausible scenario in which Y2K could cause the spontaneous launch of any missiles. There are always humans in the loop on both the Russian and U.S. side. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Secretary Hamre, do you agree with his assessment of at least what the potential risk was? JOHN HAMRE: Margaret, we've never felt that it was a significant risk, that nuclear command and control system would misinterpret then all of a sudden conclude that the United States was attacking Russia. We have no intention to attack Russia. We've been very clear about that. We've invited them to come to sit at the early warning centers, and we don't think that it's at all plausible that their command and control system would generate false attack indications. I think the more likely thing we worried about was that they would lose confidence in what their early warning system was telling them. And that's why we created a parallel system for them to sit down side-by-side with us during this crucial period so that they could be confident in the early warning capabilities -- both us and theirs. Confidence in the Russian system MARGARET WARNER: But why did you think they would lose confidence in their own early warning system? JOHN HAMRE: We've watched over the last several years that they have been a military under some stress, and they have not been able to maintain the same level of redundant capability in their command and control, as they have in the past. But I don't want you to conclude that they haven't got the solid command and control system -- they do. Just two days ago they launched a new early warning satellite. So they're going to be capable of positively controlling their nuclear arsenal. MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Blair, what's your assessment of how good their early warning system is and how much they've done in the way of work to make sure its Y2K compliant? BRUCE BLAIR: Could I just say first of all that it was actually Mr. Hamre who sounded the alarm and other Pentagon officials a year and a half ago about the potential for Y2K to cause false alarms in the Russian early warning network. And if he is as confident today as he sounds, then that must reflect perhaps improvements in remediation on the Russian side of their problems. I talked recently to Russians in Moscow and do not believe that the Russians have, in fact, solved all these problems. They say that there are some practical problems in this area that remain. Furthermore, there was a false alarm in 1995. I just mentioned it. It's quite plausible that any source of problem in the Russian network could cause a false alarm and unfortunately, their early warning system is a shambles. There are huge gaps in their radar coverage and declining performance across the board. The fact that they recently launched an early warning satellite merely reflects an effort to scramble to try to fill - plug some of the gaps and get their systems back up. But it is in very sorry condition today. MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Secretary Hamre, tell us how this center is going to work. What kind of information will really be coming in and how do you expect the Russians there to use it? JOHN HAMRE: We will be bringing into the center the same early warning information that our normal day-to-day watch stands receive from the early warning satellites and from the radars. They will see, frankly, nothing on the screens because we know that Russia won't be doing anything crazy that night, and we won't be doing anything ourselves. So I think they won't be seeing much of anything, and they'll be watching the monitors. But may I address the one issue that Dr. Blair brought up? The early warning information that comes from satellites or for radars is only one small part of a much broader context of indications and warning that both we and the Russians undertake on a day-to-day basis to understand what may be happening in each other's countries, and they will not see that we are launching or that we're raising the readiness standards of our bomber force or we're putting more submarines to sea or that there's unusual activity at our bases. None of that's going to be present to give them a sense of concern if they were all of a sudden to see a blank screen on a radar set. So there's a much broader context. I think we shouldn't misunderstand. What happened 1985 actually was an evidence of this... MARGARET WARNER: '95. JOHN HAMRE: '95. Was an evidence of the strength of the broad system, not just the weakness of the early warning part of that system. The American warning system MARGARET WARNER: Dr. Blair? BRUCE BLAIR: I couldn't describe it as a strength when Russia came so close to the self-imposed deadline for reaching a decision on retaliation in 1995. It's true that there are many inputs into an assessment besides just the technical data from satellites and ground radar, but you must understand that the two sides do continue to maintain a nuclear posture that requires very, very rapid interpretation of this information. I was just out at Cheyenne Mountain in the Missile Warning Center yesterday, for example, and I was told that the duty officer there is expected, if not required, to render a decision about whether North America is under attack within about three minutes after the first report is delivered to him from the sensor. This is a very, very tight timeline. It's pressure-packed. It's full of emotion. The last two false alarms we experienced in the United States led to such poor performance by these crews that they were actually decertified immediately afterwards. So these timelines of decision and execution under the current postures of quick launch on both sides are just inherently dangerous. They are the real problem, in fact. It's not Y2K or any other small or big problem in the early warning network; it's the fact that both sides continue to operate their nuclear forces as though the Cold War didn't end, and remain poised to launch them at a moment's notice on a very short fuse. MARGARET WARNER: So Secretary Hamre, is it possible that, given this very high alert that both sides are on, that, I mean, if Russian commanders are sitting in Moscow and they're getting a certain kind of information from their own early warning system, and it shows something, you're confident that they'll nonetheless believe the colonels that are sitting out in Colorado who say, "hey, there is nothing"? JOHN HAMRE: Margaret, I need to say that the scenario that you're describing is one where, if I could use an analogy, if there was a computer problem at the power company, how likely is it that the computer problem there would call your home and say there's a fire in your basement? It's most implausible that that would happen. That's the scenario that Dr. Blair is describing. This is not going to happen. He is really describing a concern that he has had for several years. He's led a cause for several years about the posture of both our forces and Russia, their nuclear forces. It's really unrelated to year 2000. I think the concerns of year 2000 are... MARGARET WARNER: Which he said as well. JOHN HAMRE: Yes, and it really is a different issue. It's a very fair public policy issue. We don't agree with him, but it's one that we ought to have a discussion about, but it's not related to year 2000. Year 2000, we're going to get through the night. It'll be just fine. MARGARET WARNER:All right, gentlemen. We'll have to leave it there, and we'll have that other discussion another time. Thanks, Dr. Blair and Secretary Hamre. JOHN HAMRE: Thank you. Bruce Blair is president of the Center for Defense Information.
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