| Desroko said: Leaving the codes behind is less worrisome than you think. Two military officers need to agree that the order was valid before the weapons can be armed and launched. If somebody happens to find the President's card, he'd not only need to guess the correct sequence, but he'd have to contact the personnel of a delivery system and convince them that he's George W. Bush. Maybe Will Ferrell could usher in Doomsday, but most people can't. The real problem is that these safeguards are only useful while the weapons are in the hands of military personnel. If they're lost, the triggers can be reconfigured to be detonated in any manner you like. What if these idiots had loaded the weapons on a plane or any delivery system that was going to participate in an exercise, or an actual war zone? It's not far-fetched at all, given that they're trained to treat every situation involving nukes with the utmost care. The weapons wouldn't be armed, but once they're launched God only knows where they could end up. |
On the first part: I thought I was clear in the idea that it had to be "100% unambiguous authorization" for them to launch. Not sure why he would have to guess the correct sequence though since the other information in the football is information on the plans of attack and instructions for what the procedural order of things is...after all its not like every president launches a nuke =P
On the second part: Thats just it, as far as I know we have never actually lost a nuclear weapon. So the idea that it would happen, in my mind at least, is at least 100x more far fetched than say Will Farrel ushering in doomsday with the football. As for idiots loading them onto planes for a warzone I would say, so what? They won't fire without authorization the same as they won't arm. They don't just safeguard detonation they safeguard delivery as well. How many people do you think would have figured out that it would be easy to send one of these bad boys overseas and have it be "lost" before anyone could find it by pulling this stunt?
But in the event it did leave the plane, the fact that each of the warheads is fitted with tracking devices makes it easy to locate, besides how many people can recognize a nuke on sight to know what it is and try to grab it? By the time they got the thing on a truck there would be a minimum 10 satellites watching them and more than likely there would be several heavily armed and well trained soldiers within seconds of blowing them all away.
But like I said, the situation isn't a "good thing" but good things can come of it. My hope is that the people who do these jobs will be given an example of what happens when you make a mistake (aka large demotion or discharge) and hopefully provide just a little more incentive to be ever watchful.
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
