The threat of nuclear war puts enough stress on people that an
accidental nuclear war could be the result. With more and more of the
superpowers defences being controlled by complex computers, the chance
of a malfunction increases as well. Add this to normal human error and
governmental mistakes and you have a recipe for disaster. For this paper I
will be describing examples and systems of the United States, as Canada
has no nuclear weapons, and the USA's information is more readily
available than the other nuclear equipped countries.
'Accidental nuclear war' is a term for a very broad subject, with
hard to define boundaries. Technical errors, miscalculations and
unintended escalation can all lead to inadvertent nuclear war.
In the 1950's a flock of geese was mistaken for a squadron of
Russian bombers, and in 1960 a radar beam reflecting off the moon
duplicated a Soviet ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile)(Barbara
Marsh, p.65).
Both of these false alarms were detected in time to halt a
counter-strike mainly because it was peace time and no one's finger
poised over the 'button'. During a crisis, peoples high levels of stress
create suspicions where there shouldn't be, and as a result many safe
guards are removed that are in place to prevent an accidental launch. It is
feared that under these circumstances it would be quite easy for a flock of
geese to set off a nuclear war. Another fear is that a smaller nation, such
as recent Korea, could gain control of, and utilize nuclear weapons, and
trigger a war between the super powers. This type is called a catalytic
nuclear war.
There are two types of control over the operation of nuclear
weapons: positive and negative. Plans implemented in order to prevent
unauthorized use of the nuclear weapons...