The US Strategic Air Command, which controls more explosives than all
the other military forces of the world throughout history, is now
carefully targeting its missiles on the Arctic and the North Atlantic.
Where once its Mirvs and Minutemen were aimed at Soviet nuclear bases,
at the Red Army's command posts, and at the Kremlin in the heart of
Moscow, they are now to be aimed at places where they would do least
damage and hurt nobody.
The move is aimed at building confidence with Russia and with the
other remaining nuclear powers in the former USSR. No missile has ever
been launched accidentally, but there is always a possibility, and if
they are all aimed into the oceans, the world will be a safer place.
The New York Times reported the new policy this morning, and the
Pentagon has confirmed it. Now the Americans are trying to persuade the
Russians to follow suit. The unspoken assumption is that an accident is
far more likely to occur in Russia than in the US.
We would all sleep more soundly if Russian SS-18s and SS-20s were also
aimed away from populated areas. The various disarmament agreements,
Salt-1, Start-1 and Start-2, have provided for cutting both sides'
nuclear arsenals from some 30,000 warheads each to approximately 5000 by
the end of the decade. That still leaves a frightening number of
weapons, and both sides want them as safe as possible.
The Pentagon has been examining maps of the sea-lanes, to discover
those patches of ocean least frequented by ships and submarines. They
have to be within the range of the missiles, of course, and in the
general direction of their real targets.
Fortunately, the North Atlantic has plenty of dead spots where a
nuclear missile, or one of its war-heads, could, sink or even explode,
without damage.
Four of the former Soviet Republics still have nuclear missiles:
Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Kazakhstan. The Russians control them
all and propose to remove those in the other three nations. Ukraine and
Kazakhstan, however, are reluctant to lose their status as nuclear
super-powers.
They can hardly seriously contemplate using the missiles against
Russia, their only possible enemy, though some ultra-nationalists may
harbour such dangerous fantasies. Their greater interest is to sell the
missiles to the US. The Americans are quite ready to pay to dismantle
the missiles, and have set up a programme to help Russia dispose of its
nuclear materials. But Ukraine, in particular, wants more aid. The
quarrel is likely to continue, because the old-line Communist regime in
Kiev has balked at all market reforms, and Ukraine's economy is
collapsing.
Getting the missiles in Ukraine aimed at the open seas, therefore,
seems rather more urgent than changing the settings on American
missiles.
The New York Times quoted an unnamed Pentagon official who remarked:
''We don't worry about where French or British nuclear missiles are
pointed.''
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