The logic of accidental nuclear war

Abstract

During the Cold War, the command and control systems governing the nuclear forces of the United States and the Soviet Union posed a significant risk of inadvertent nuclear war. The systems evolved to be highly vulnerable to attack, to adopt postures of launch-on-warning, to rely on early warning systems of questionable reliability, and to be prone to delegate launch authority. The Soviet command system was generally more tightly controlled than its American counterpart, but its vulnerability was also substantial. The risk of inadvertent escalation in a crisis was greater than had generally been recognized. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War have brought about a dramatic change in the global strategic landscape, but a residual risk of inadvertence still exists. The United States and Russia should take a variety of unilateral and bilateral steps to reduce these dangers and to set an example of responsible nuclear custodianship. – AI-generated abstract