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By Peter Huessy, President of GeoStrategic Analysis, Potomac, Maryland – Senior Warrior Maven Columnist
Minuteman III and GBSD continue to be important topics of consideration in the current review of the proper US nuclear posture. One important criticism of the ICBM leg of the Triad, both MM IIII and GBSD, is the claim the missiles are on hair trigger, thus destabilizing, and serving only to draw Russian firepower onto the 400 silos and 45 launch control centers. This argument has been primarily put forward by former Defense Secretary William Perry, but also the wider arms control community, and has long been a part of the anti-ICBM narrative, first started by the late Bruce Blair, the founder of Global Zero. Blair claimed for much of his time at Global Zero that as a launch control officer in the USAF prior to 1973, he determined that he alone could launch America’s ICBMs. That claim after sustained criticism was later taken back by Blair. In a 2019 report he repeatedly emphasized that no one but the President of the United States could authorize and actually order the launch of US ICBMs.
A report 40+ years old was actually written about the false warning scenarios William Perry has used to link ICBMs to a “hair trigger” danger.
Linked below is the 9 October 1980 SASC report on the false alarms at NORAD. Senators Hart and Goldwater chaired the study.
In my opinion, based upon the report findings, claims of a near miss – that the false computer warnings came close to initiating a nuclear war – appear to be greatly exaggerated.
Of specific note, the report found that no Missile Attack Conference has ever been convened. Not just then but ever.
Since then, no one with whom I have spoken over some nearly 40 years of nuclear seminars knows of any threat conference where the President has actually been involved and asked to even consider the use of a nuclear weapon. There have been conferences to determine whether a missile launch occurred in various parts of the world and then to determine or authenticate such launches, but no threat conference has ever been convened contrary to Perry/Collina’s recent essay calling for the elimination of the GBSD and the land-based leg of the Triad.