Ex-US nuclear commander: 'De-alert' nukes or risk disaster

A former commander of US nuclear forces has called on the United States and Russia to take their missiles off high alert to avoid a nuclear disaster.

Retired four-star General James Cartwright said in an interview published by POLITICO on Thursday that “de-alerting” nuclear arsenals could reduce the risk of firing nuclear weapons in response to a false warning of an attack.

Nearly 25 years after the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, Washington and Moscow reportedly still have some 2,000 atomic weapons ready to fly at a moment’s notice to destroy each other.

And this state of alert is now causing new concerns that the lack of trust between Washington and Moscow has significantly increased the risk of a miscalculation that could lead to a nuclear disaster.

Cartwright, who left the US military in 2011, is leading a group of former Russian military officers and other national security leaders. Their group is appealing to the United States and Russia to take immediate steps to “de-alert” their respective arsenals.

The group has warned that the worsening relations between the two nuclear powers, combined with other new factors such as the threat of cyberattacks, could lead to a nuclear disaster unless the leaders of the two countries allocate more time to respond to potential provocations before ordering a nuclear attack.

“Tension between Russia and the West over the Ukraine crisis has brought the parties one step closer to the precipice of nuclear brinksmanship, the point at which nuclear risk skyrockets,” according to the findings of the commission convened by Global Zero, an international non-partisan group of 300 world leaders dedicated to achieving the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The disarmament group, which is currently led by Cartwright, will present its findings to the United Nations soon.

“This tension is uncharacteristic of their post-Cold War partnership, but it has flared to the point that it is producing dangerous misunderstandings and action-reaction cycles with strong escalatory updrafts,” the study said.

According to Global Zero, flawed intelligence or a misreading of intentions could spur an accidental nuclear war between Washington and Moscow.   

“These weapons that are on alert are particularly vulnerable to being hijacked or [the systems] indicate something that is not true in a situation where you only have a few minutes to make a decision,” Cartwright told POLITICO.

Cartwright was head of the US Strategic Command before becoming vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In an interview with Euronews earlier this month, leading American political analyst and philosopher Noam Chomsky said the world is racing toward a nuclear “precipice” and the United States poses the “greatest threat” in this regard.

Chomsky said on April 17 that “one [threat to humankind] is environmental catastrophe which is imminent and we don’t have a lot of time to deal with it and we are going the wrong way, and the other has been around for 70 years, the threat of nuclear war, which is in fact increasing. If you look at the record it is a miracle we have survived.”

He said that US President Barack Obama has just “initiated a trillion dollar program of modernization of the US nuclear weapon system, which means expanding the nuclear weapon system.”

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