Will It Be Possible To Hack Connected Nuclear Weapons?

Nuclear warheads will be networked, with a greater potential for mishaps. Is that wise?

Future nuclear missiles may be siloed but, unlike their predecessors, they’ll exhibit “some level of connectivity to the rest of the warfighting system,” according to Werner J.A. Dahm, the chair of the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. 

That opens up new potential for nuclear mishaps that, until now, have never been a part of Pentagon planning. In 2017, the board will undertake a study to see how to meet those concerns. “Obviously the Air Force doesn’t conceptualize systems like that without ideas for how they would address those surety concerns,” said Dahm.

It’s no simple or straight-forward undertaking. The last time the United States designed an intercontinental ballistic missile was 1975. At the end of the December 2016, the Air Force Science Board announced that in 2017 they would explore safety and practical concerns of making a missile for the modern age along with other nuclear weapons that fall under the command of the Air Force.(pictured: Minuteman 3 in silo)

“We have a number of nuclear systems that are in need of recapitalisation,” said Dahm, referring to LRSO, ICBMs and the B-21 stealth bomber. In the future, he said, “these systems are going to be quite different from the ones that they may replace. In particular, they will be much more like all systems today, network connected. They’ll be cyber enabled.” That connectivity will create new concerns in terms of safety and certification that will almost certainly require changes or additions to current DoD directives.

The study comes at a critical time for the future of US Nuclear Weapons. On December 22, Donald Trump confused and alarmed the world when he tweeted that he would both strengthen and expand America’s nuclear weapons capability. But there was less new in the announcement than might actually appear. In fact, the Obama Administration was already working to fulfill the “strengthening” part of that same promise, having already put the United States on track to spend more than $1 trillion on modernisation of US nuclear weapons.

For the United States Air Force, the modernisation list includes replacing LGM-30 Minuteman with a new  intercontinental ballistic missile (also called a ground-based strategic deterrent,) developing a controversial nuclear-armed cruise missile called the long-range standoff weapon, or LRSO, to building and deploying an entirely new B-21 stealth bomber.

What are “surety concerns?”  Read that to mean how do you make sure that your fancy networked nuclear warfare control system can’t be hijacked or go off accidently.

Before the United States can modernise its nuclear weapons it must first make certain it understands everything that can possibly go wrong. 

Think back to the classic film Dr. Strangelove, a story very much about surety failure. A crazed Air Force general sends his B-52 wing to destroy their targets in the Soviet Union.

Of course, only the US President is supposed to be able to call for a nuclear strike, but it is thought that a contingency plan allows a lower level commander to issue the order in the event that the normal command and control has been disrupted.

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