Loving the bomb

In spy movies, it always seems that some global supervillain is holding the world hostage by threatening major cities with stolen nuclear warheads. This always seemed dumb to me, though. Based on my movie-originated nuclear weaponry expertise, warheads are pretty well-protected. You need to turn at least two different keys in order to launch a nuclear attack, after all. \nEvidently, though, such a plot device might not be as impossible as I thought.\nIn the waning days of August 2007, possibly the most frightening nuclear event in years occurred when six American nuclear warheads went missing for about 36 hours while being transported across the country.\nThe warheads were believed to be unarmed cruise missiles when they were loaded onto a B-52 bomber at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The idea was to take the “cruise missiles” to Barksdale Air Force Base outside of Shreveport, La., where they would be bound for storage in a weapons graveyard. There was a mix-up, though, and the warheads were loaded instead of the unarmed missiles.\nBarksdale Air Force Base had no idea that six nukes were on their way. The safety and security protocol, which was developed during the Cold War, was basically ignored or, at the very least, improperly executed.\nFirst of all, it seems ironic that the citizens of the United States have, in the past five years, been faced with threats – both credible and not – of countries like Iraq and North Korea attacking this nation with weapons of mass destruction, while the only real threat appears to be from our own military screwing up.\nAll humor aside, though, this chain of events is a fairly frightening one. Not only were six nuclear warheads misplaced, but for much of that 36-hour period, the warheads were mostly unguarded. Anything could have happened during those unguarded spans. We’re lucky that this was an unintentional lapse instead of a sinister plot of some kind, because the failsafes that are supposed to keep one person’s mistake from snowballing clearly failed.\nThis situation demonstrates two points. First of all, for years and years during the Cold War, our nuclear arsenal was our biggest concern. Now, however, it does not receive much attention. Considering the amount of nuclear firepower the U.S. military still has, that’s pretty dangerous. Just because we are no longer constantly on the brink of nuclear war doesn’t mean we should be lax in taking care of our remaining warheads.\nAside from that, though, the American people have, for several years now, been repeatedly told that the reason for the wars being fought right now is so that “we don’t have to fight the terrorists here.” That’s all well and good, but if we don’t take care of our own business here, we won’t need to worry about the terrorists. If there are nuclear warheads randomly jetsetting around the country, pretty soon there may not be a homeland to keep secure.