Daily Times

Two weeks ago air raid sirens blared their warnings throughout Pearl Harbor and the Hawaiian Islands. The last time this had happened was on December 7, 1941. That was when Japanese Kamikaze pilots wreaked havoc on a row of battleships and other military facilities on Pearl Harbour — the attack which pulled the US into World War-II’s pacific theatre. This time however, the threat was North Korea, not Japan, and the threat of North Korean missiles destroying Honolulu, possibly with warheads was no longer remote.

Fortunately, no missiles had been launched. It turned out that human error caused the alert and the subsequent panic. There is a lesson to be learned here. And that is that the danger posed by nuclear accident or miscalculation is real. Indeed, it is a miracle that we have not already lost lives to an accidental detonation.

While the US has always worried about nuclear proliferation and whether other states could be trusted to secure their nuclear weapons, its own record has not been so good. Nuclear bombs were dropped inadvertently or lost in crashes. Three incidents stand out.

In 1979, Strategic Air Command (SAC) in Omaha, Nebraska detected hundreds of incoming Soviet warheads. Attack was imminent or so the warning systems indicated. Fortunately, the SAC Commander at the time, Air Force General Richard Ellis kept his head when he was awakened by a frightening call on the red phone. Ellis did not believe the report.

In fact, there was no attack. The off going watch section had played a training tape to test the system. The tape was supposedly deleted. However, it was not and inadvertently caused the mistaken alarm. Reading former Defence Secretary William Perry and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski on this potential catastrophe should be mandatory for all senior government officials on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

In 1980, A Titan-II ICBM accidentally ignited spewing a five megaton thermonuclear warhead several hundred feet into an Arkansas farmer’s field. One Air Force technician in the silo was killed. But the warhead did not fully detonate and failed to release any radioactive material.

In 1983, a US military training exercise called ‘Able Archer’ was wrongly evaluated by the Soviet Union as a pre-emptive strike against it. Again, catastrophe was avoided. But it was a close call.

Today, the latest nuclear danger in Washington stems from North Korea. Many still worry about the security of Pakistani nuclear weapons. Fewer worry about Indian or Israeli weapons. Ironically, Pakistani nuclear weapons, though far fewer in number than America’s, have had a better safety record. And an unclassified report written for Sandia National Lab about a decade ago by former Pakistani Ambassador to the US and National Security Advisor, General Mahmud Durrani, revealed that its weapons were stored under a ‘three key system’ arguably safer than the US two key process.

The about to be released Nuclear Posture Review and National Defence Strategy are reportedly calling for the recapitalisation and modernisation of America’s nuclear forces. Given that the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed three decades ago and New START are in jeopardy of being revoked, a new nuclear arms race is indeed a possibility. Especially since China and Russia have become the new centre pieces for the new defence strategy. This could be a disaster in the making

Meanwhile, the about to be released Nuclear Posture Review and National Defence Strategy are reportedly calling for a recapitalisation and modernisation of America’s nuclear forces. Given that the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed three decades ago and New START are in jeopardy of being revoked, a new nuclear arms race is indeed a possibility especially as China and Russia have become the new centre pieces for the new defence strategy. This could be a disaster in the making.

The Hawaii alert provides a great opportunity for the Trump Administration. First, it needs to review the unhappy history of nuclear weapon related accidents and incidents publicly and share the findings with Congress and the American people. Second, and at the same time, Presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin must meet on this issue of arms control and arms reductions soon. Third, an agenda to reduce nuclear weapons and limit modernisation as well as to prevent incidents and accidents must be set and then signed as executive agreement or treaty. This would re-invigorate past efforts to build confidence and exchange observers as well as de-targeting all warheads. Indeed, meetings to include all nuclear weapons states should be established to prevent their spread or use.

Napoleon asked if a general was lucky before appointing him to high command. Make no mistake, the US and the rest of the world have been lucky so far. But as the Hawaiian alarm demonstrates, mistakes happen. And what happens if next time, it is al Qaeda or the Islamic State that triggers a false alarm that in turn is not perceived as false?

The writer is chairman of two private companies; senior advisor at the Atlantic Council and Business Executives for National Security. His latest book is Anatomy of Failure — Why America Loses Every War It Starts. He tweetsat @harlankullman

Published in Daily Times, January 29^th 2018.