8 May 2015

NUCLEAR STOCKPILES AND CYBER-ATTACKS: A STORY WE’RE LIKELY ALL TOO FAMILIAR WITH

NICK RUDNIK

The 1983 Cold War science fiction film, WarGames, was surely ahead of its time. In the film, engineers at NORAD missile control are unable (or unwilling) to complete a mock missile launch sequence as part of a normal drill. This finally persuades the commander of NORAD’s missile control to reinforce their roles by automation with a supercomputer, nicknamed “Joshua.” Joshua would run an innumerable number of nuclear simulations over time with the hope that it would learn from them.

Enter Matthew Broderick as David Lightman, an apathetic Seattle high school student and hacker, who, while searching computer networks for games to play, stumbles upon one that piques his interest—“Global Thermonuclear War.” Unbeknownst to Lightman, he had hacked into NORAD’s computer systems, mistakenly bypassed the computer’s game mode and, while playing as the Soviet Union, convinced NORAD that a strategic first strike by the USSR was imminent.

Fast forward three decades where retired Gen. James Cartwright, former commander of U.S. Strategic Command, the military unit tasked with overseeing nuclear weapon readiness, has recently called for U.S. ballistic missiles to be taken off their high alert status over the possibility of our nuclear stockpiles being manipulated through a cyber-attack. Gen. Cartwright’s remarks come amid growing scrutiny of U.S. military readiness to combat an aggressive cyber-attack.

To date, the U.S. continually maintains 450 Minutemen missiles ready to be deployed from their silos at a moment’s notice. The former states of the Soviet Union with atomic weapons have likely maintained a similar arrangement, keeping their missiles at the ready, prepared to annihilate the other at a moment’s notice, without a moment’s thought.

WarGames endures. In fact, it is timelier than ever with the rise of the information age and a new era of cyber warfare. With the advent of computer-based combat, a single nation or even a lone hacker does not need to actually possess an atomic weapon, for they can break into a government computer system and launch another’s missiles from their silos.

Imagine a hacker, acting as a terrorist or on behalf of some rogue state, finding a backdoor into the NORAD computer systems and gaining full control over U.S. ballistic weapons. By launching them, he’d likely trigger the Russian nuclear early warning system. The Russians would use their jets, satellites, and space station to confirm a nuclear launch has occurred. And then, they’ll likely reciprocate by initiating a strategic retaliatory strike.

By this time, the other NATO powers will, having seen the blips on their early detection systems, launch a series of preemptive or retaliatory strikes. In just a few short hours, in perhaps a simple afternoon, all life on this planet could lay in smoldering ruins; all existence annihilated or forever changed.

And for what? What victory would be achieved as a result of this cyber-attack? Clearly, none. For this, Gen. Cartwright joins a growing number of policymakers urging reform to our strategic weapons caches.

Nuclear weapons, missiles that harness the energy found elsewhere only in stars, which detonate at temperatures exceeding 100,000,000 degrees, represent among the greatest moral, social, and political challenges of both the Cold War and post-Cold War eras.

Nearly every major religious world leader has denounced the continual manufacture, maintenance, and development of these weapons. Our political leaders have acted as though they’re necessary evils, given the realities of our world. And yet to this day, they’re kept at the ready, to be launched without hesitation to catapult the world into Armageddon.

And we wholeheartedly accept these states of affairs as “rational,” “normal,” and “business as usual.”

By the end of WarGames the supercomputer, Joshua, reasons through his automated, robotic voice—having run thousands of simulations of thermonuclear combat—that “the only winning move is not to play.” In sum, the only way to free man from the looming haze of nuclear extinction is to refuse to abscond to playing such a futile and infantile game of mutually assured destruction.

Once Joshua finishes his final simulation sequence, he gives us his verdict—a result we know deep inside all too well. The computer comes to understand the senselessness of atomized combat, and following his final simulation, declares, “Winner: None.” WarGames implicitly forces us to ask ourselves: if a completely and perfectly rational supercomputer can understand the pointless nature of nuclear war, why can’t we as mankind?

For this and more, the United States must take our hydrogen weapons off of their “high alert” status. In our age of cyber combat, an age not too different from that of WarGames, we should never forget that if a rogue hacker can gain access to our critical nuclear launch systems, the end result is the sum of all fears—the end of days. And, we should also remember that if these atrocious weapons are ever launched, there will be no winner, no victor. Only a pile of destruction, carnage, and death that was once a remarkable planet. If a computer can realize that, hopefully man can before it’s too late.

Nicholas A. Rudnik is currently pursuing a degree in political science with a concentration in American politics at Valdosta State University. Previously, he’s served as a congressional page in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 111th Congress and in the Office of U.S. Congressman Sanford Bishop. Further, Nick has served on staff at an institutional interest group, the Association of American Law Schools, in Washington and has worked in the private sector. He has presented his research, focused primarily on congressional parties and elections, at regional academic conferences and hopes to pursue a graduate degree in political science. Nick is currently completing two manuscripts relating to southern congressional elections and judicial decision-making in the area of campaign finance; he can be contacted via e-mail at narudnik@valdosta.edu. Follow Nick on Twitter: @NickRudnik.



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