Vince Houghton - Nuking the Moon - And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Board

Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.

That emphasis is mine, but it’s an ironic sentence if you think about it. It’s obviously not “needless to say.” Apparently, it needs to be said again and again. The NOAA page itself indicates that “during each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms.”

I wonder who keeps sending in these suggestions.

Twenty bucks says it’s someone from Florida.

The last intercontinental ballistic missile deployed by the U.S. Air Force in the twentieth century was ironically named the “Peacekeeper.” It was one of the most lethal nuclear weapons ever developed, and could carry up to ten independently targetable reentry vehicles with greater accuracy than any other ballistic missile in history. Each of the Peacekeeper’s ten thermonuclear warheads packed a yield of 300 kilotons.

While under development, the Peacekeeper was called Missile-X, for “Missile-eXperimental”—or simply the MX. Development began in the early 1970s. Strategic Air Command (SAC) was excited about the prospects of its new missile. It would have increased range and pinpoint accuracy, and the MIRVed system would allow considerable flexibility in targeting and enough destructive power to level multiple major cities.

The MX had a quirky launch procedure called a “cold launch technique.” The missile was popped out of the silo (like a cork coming out of a champagne bottle) using steam pressure then when it reach an altitude of 150 to 300 feet, its first-stage rocket would ignite for liftoff. For just a slight moment—but for what must have felt like three heart-palpitating days for those watching the launch—the missile would seemingly hover in the air before blasting off toward its eventual destination, which could be up to sixty-eight hundred miles away.

But despite its (quite significant) upgrades over its predecessors, the MX still had one glaring weakness: It was a land-based missile, and thus a sitting duck for Soviet ICBMs. Unlike the other delivery systems of the U.S. nuclear triad—ballistic missile submarines, which lurk in the ocean depths until ordered to war, or strategic aircraft, which at even the slowest speeds are still moving at hundreds of miles per hour—nuclear missile silos are static, and so make juicy targets for “counterforce” strikes, using nuclear weapons to target the other guy’s nuclear weapons. Improvements in the 1960s in Soviet ICBM forces and missile accuracy (like the deployment of the SS-9 missile, which was specifically designed to destroy U.S. ICBM launch control centers and their missiles) raised serious concerns over the ability of silo-based ICBMs to survive a dedicated counterforce attack.

So why bother? First and foremost, the nuclear triad was a core component of the American nuclear strategy. Having three options meant that there would still be a way to counterattack if the Soviets disabled one or even two legs of the triad. Second, these were really powerful missiles.

One solution to the problem could be to harden the missile silos to make them less vulnerable to damage during an attack. They’d sit there and take the punishment in the hope that they were durable enough to survive the onslaught long enough to punch back.

The other option was to make the MX mobile. To keep it bobbing and weaving. Floating like a butterfly so it could sting like a bee. Never in the same spot for long, and thus impossible to effectively target.

Not the worst idea, really.

So in the late 1970s, President Carter asked the Department of Defense to study options for helping American Peacekeepers survive the apocalypse. What would be the best way to do this? What method of mobility would keep our missiles safe?

Somehow, a group of very smart people came up with these proposals.

The DoD usedeleven criteria to evaluate the different options for MX basing. They were:

1. (Survivability) “Susceptibility to responsive threats”—The Soviets would surely respond to American actions. Would Soviet countermeasures quickly make the option obsolete?

2. (Survivability) “Independent survivability mode from the other two legs of the Triad”—Was this option vulnerable in any of the same ways as submarine or air-launched systems?

3. (Survivability) “Endurance”—How long will this option survive post-attack?

4. (Operational Feasibility) “Public interface”—These weapons should be “highly isolated” from the public.

5. (Operational Feasibility) “Security”—These weapons need to be kept safe from terrorist or paramilitary attacks.

6. (Operational Feasibility) “Operability”—Is it easy to use?

7. (Other Criteria) “Technical risk”—The system should be well within the means of current-day technologies.

8. (Other Criteria) “Environmental impact”—The system should not use too much land, deplete too many resources, deface too much natural terrain, or cause “harmful public dislocations and burdens.”

9. (Other Criteria) “Cost”—Is it expensive?

10. (Other Criteria) “Schedule”—Can we develop it quickly?

11. (Other Criteria) “Arms control treaties”—Can we do this legally?

With these criteria in mind, the Pentagon began its search for the best way to protect the Peacekeepers.

The first option considered wasn’t really an ICBM basing mode but a reaffirmation of a Cold War nuclear strategy that left much to be desired. Known as Launch Under Attack (LUA), this concept calls for keeping our missiles safe by ensuring they are no longer in the ground when Soviet missiles arrive. How do we do this? We get our birds out of the ground as soon as our warning systems (radar and satellites) detect a Soviet missile launch.

This might sound sensible on paper, but comes with considerable downsides. For one, timing. An ICBM launched from the Soviet Union would only take, at most, thirty minutes to reach the United States, a submarine-launched missile as few as five. This gives very little time for the president to determine if the threat is a real attack or a false alarm before he has to order a retaliatory strike. He couldn’t take any chances with the survival of the United States on the line, so even false alarms would be likely to spur a full-scale nuclear war. Also, American missiles would need to be pre-aimed at special targets and put on a hair-trigger alert status, since there wouldn’t be any time to have a planning and targeting meeting or to prep the missiles before the order to launch. It’s hard to imagine that this wouldn’t be a recipe for accidents or unintentional or unauthorized launches.

But all this assumes our early warning systems and communications networks are fully operational. The Soviets would surely try and find ways to blind our warning systems or disrupt our command and control communications. This could be accomplished through radar jamming, or through kinetic (physical) attacks on our radar installations, communications platforms, or imagery- and sensor-based satellites. In this case, the president would have an excruciating decision to make: He would be forced to decide to launch on the basis—and only on the basis—that our warning systems were not working, rather than on real indications of a Soviet attack. Ordering the deaths of tens (or hundreds) of millions based only on inconclusive evidence? I wouldn’t want to be that guy.