Sagan gives references to original sources in all instances. Details of some of the events differ in different sources: where there have been disagreements, I have chosen to quote those from the carefully researched book, The Limits of Safety by Scott D. If the people involved had exercised less caution, or if some unfortunate coincidental event had occurred, escalation to nuclear war can easily be imagined. The risks are illustrated by the following selection of mishap. A fire at a broken gas pipeline was believed to be enemy jamming by laser of a satellite's infrared sensor when those sensors were first deployed. The rising moon was misinterpreted as a missile attack during the early days of long-range radar. Working with any new system, false alarms are more likely. No doubt there have been as many mishaps on the Soviet Side. Probably many remain unknown to the public and the research community because of individuals' desire to avoid blame and maintain the good reputation of their unit or command. On the American side many "false alarms" and significant accidents have been listed, ranging from trivial to very serious, during the Cold War. The risk of such a sequence developing would be increased if it happened during a period of increased international tension. A similar sequence could result from an accidental nuclear explosion anywhere. This action would be detected by the other side, and they would take appropriate action detection of the response would tend to confirm the original false alarm and so on to disaster. One way a war could start is a false alarm via one of the warning systems, followed by an increased level of nuclear forces readiness while the validity of the information was being checked. That is the reason I am prepared to spend the rest of my life working for abolition of nuclear weapons. Despite all precautions, the possibility of an inadvertent war due to an unpredicted sequence of events remained as a deadly threat to both countries and to the world.
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