{"id":23696,"date":"2017-04-20T19:18:11","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T00:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23696"},"modified":"2017-04-20T19:18:11","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T00:18:11","slug":"risk-of-accidental-nuclear-war-growing-un-research-group-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=23696","title":{"rendered":"Risk of \u2018Accidental\u2019 Nuclear War Growing, UN Research Group Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"grid_8 d1-article article dont-miss-compare-with\">\n<article class=\"\">\n<h3 class=\"d1-post-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/technology\/2017\/04\/risk-nuclear-accidents-growing-un-research-group-says\/137171\/\"><span class=\"d1-post-title-text\">Risk of \u2018Accidental\u2019 Nuclear War Growing, <span class=\"caps\">UN<\/span> Research Group\u00a0Says<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"d1-lead-image-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"In this photo taken June 24, 2014, 1st Lt. Phil Parentrau opens the first of two blast doors leading to the underground control room at an ICBM launch control facility near Minot, N.D.\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.defenseone.com\/media\/img\/upload\/2017\/04\/19\/AP_470731491314\/defense-large.jpg\" alt=\"In this photo taken June 24, 2014, 1st Lt. Phil Parentrau opens the first of two blast doors leading to the underground control room at an ICBM launch control facility near Minot, N.D.\" \/>The warning comes as the Pentagon begins an extensive review of its nuclear arsenal.<\/div>\n<div class=\"text d1-article-content\">\n<p>On Sept., 26, 1983, shortly after midnight, the Soviet Oko nuclear early warning system detected five missiles launched from the United States and headed toward Moscow. Stanislav Petrov, a young lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Force, was the duty in the<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Serpukhov-15\"> Serpukhov-15<\/a> bunker that housed the Oko command center. Petrov was the man in charge of alerting the soviets about a\u00a0nuclear attack, which would trigger a retaliatory strike. He determined that the Oko had likely malfunctioned and the alarm was false. The Americans would not start World War <span class=\"caps\">III<\/span> with a quintet of missiles (risking total annihilation.) It was a daring judgment call. He was, of course, right. As the <span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span> prepares to undertake a new nuclear posture review to determine the future direction of the nation\u2019s nuclear weapons, a report from a United Nations research institute warns that the risks of a catastrophic error \u2014 like the one that took place that early morning in 1983 \u2014 are growing, not shrinking. Next time, there may be no Lt. Col. Petrov in place to avoid a\u00a0catastrophe.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, the <span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span> Defense Department commenced a new, massive study into its nuclear weapons arsenal, looking at how weapons are kept, how the <span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span> would use them in war and whether they present an intimidating enough threat to other countries not to attack us. The review was mandated by President Trump in a J<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2017\/01\/27\/presidential-memorandum-rebuilding-us-armed-forces\">an 27,\u00a0memo.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"d1-article-ad-instream d1-article-ad-instream-desktop ad-container ad ad-container-leaderboard ad-loaded\">\n<div id=\"ad-gemg-inject-5\" class=\"ad-slot ad-desktop\" data-google-query-id=\"CO2gnsmitNMCFQStUQodecQIjg\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/617\/defenseone.com\/section_technology\/content\/pid_137171_5__container__\">The Pentagon is scheduled to complete the review by the end of the year, an essential step as the military seeks to modernize different aspects of its nuclear deterrent. But <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unidir.org\/files\/publications\/pdfs\/understanding-nuclear-weapon-risks-en-676.pdf\">a new report<\/a> from the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, or <span class=\"caps\">UNIDR<\/span>, argues that as the modern battlefield becomes more technologically complex, crowded with more sensors, satellites, drones, and interconnected networks, the risks of another nuclear accident are on the\u00a0rise.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"grid_8 d1-article article dont-miss-compare-with\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Risk of \u2018Accidental\u2019 Nuclear War Growing, UN Research Group\u00a0Says The warning comes as the Pentagon begins an extensive review of its nuclear arsenal. On Sept., 26, 1983, shortly after midnight, the Soviet Oko nuclear early warning system detected five missiles launched from the United States and headed toward Moscow. Stanislav Petrov, a young lieutenant colonel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15178,581,15179,620,822,15180,826,15181,862],"class_list":["post-23696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-defenseone","tag-nuclear-war","tag-patrick-tucker","tag-pentagon","tag-un","tag-unidr","tag-united-nations","tag-united-nations-institute-for-disarmament-research","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23697,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23696\/revisions\/23697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}