Taking U.S. and Russian missiles off high alert could keep a possible cyberattack from starting a nuclear war, a former commander of U.S. nuclear forces says, but neither country appears willing to increase the lead-time to prepare the weapons for launch.
Retired Gen. James Cartwright said in an interview that “de-alerting” nuclear arsenals could foil hackers by reducing the chance of firing a weapon in response to a false warning of attack.
Essentially adding a longer fuse can be done without eroding the weapons’ deterrent value, said Cartwright, who headed Strategic Command from 2004 to 2007 and was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before retiring in 2011.
Cartwright said cyberthreats to the systems that command and control U.S. nuclear weapons demand greater attention.
The sophistication of the cyberthreat has increased exponentially
“It is reasonable to believe that that threat has extended itself” into nuclear command and control systems.
Have they been penetrated? I don’t know. Is it reasonable technically to assume they could be? Yes.
