What Does History Teach? Nuclear Weapons Security Crises: NUCLEARNUCLEAR WEAPONSWEAPONS SECURITYSECURITY CRISES:CRISES: WHATWHAT DOESDOES HISTORYHISTORY TEACH?TEACH? U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE Visit our website for other free publication downloads Henry D. Sokolski http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/ Bruno Tertrais To rate this publication click here. Editors Bruno Tertrais Henry D. Sokolski Editors This Publication SSI Website USAWC Website Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press NUCLEAR WEAPONS SECURITY CRISES: WHAT DOES HISTORY TEACH? Henry D. Sokolski Bruno Tertrais Editors July 2013 The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. 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ISBN 1-58487-574-7 ii CONTENTS Foreword ........................................................................v Henry D. Sokolski and Bruno Tertrais Preface...........................................................................vii Henry D. Sokolski Introduction 1. The Unexpected Risk: The Impact of Political Crises on the Security and Control of Nuclear Weapons ................................3 Bruno Tertrais Part I: Case Studies 2. A “Nuclear Coup”? France, the Algerian War, and the April 1961 Nuclear Test ...............25 Bruno Tertrais 3. Securing Nuclear Arsenals: A Chinese Case Study .............................................................65 Mark A. Stokes 4. Controlling Soviet/Russian Nuclear Weapons in Times of Instability .........................87 Nikolai Sokov 5. Political Transitions and Nuclear Management in Pakistan ...................................145 Feroz Hassan Khan iii Part II: Lessons Learned 6. The Conundrum of Close Calls: Lessons Learned for Securing Nuclear Weapons ...............................................................191 Reid B.C. Pauly and Scott D. Sagan 7. Nuclear Command and Control in Crisis: Old Lessons from New History ........................205 Peter D. Feaver 8. Securing Nuclear Arsenals in Times of Political Turmoil: “Top 10” Lessons Learned .................................................227 Gregory F. Giles 9. Beyond Crises: The Unending Challenge of Controlling Nuclear Weapons and Materials ...................................................... 253 Matthew Bunn About the Contributors ............................................ 279 iv FOREWORD This volume is the 16th in a series of edited vol- umes of contracted research the Nonproliferation Pol- icy Education Center (NPEC) has published in coop- eration with the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. It is the product of a joint effort between NPEC and Bruno Tertrais of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique. The volume features research done over the past 2 years. This work addresses the possibility of nuclear weapons and materials falling into the hands of unauthorized actors during political crises. It uses specific historical case studies as the basis from which to draw lessons for the future. Fund- ing for this project came from the Carnegie Cor- poration of New York, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Much of the work to prepare the book for publi- cation was done by NPEC’s research associate, Kate Harrison, and the staff of the Strategic Studies Insti- tute, especially Dr. James Pierce and Rita Rummel. This book would not have been possible without their help. Finally, we owe heartfelt thanks to the project’s authors and reviewers, who contributed their time and ideas. HENRY D. SOKOLSKI Executive Director The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center BRUNO TERTRAIS Senior Research Fellow Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique v PREFACE NUCLEAR SECURITY HISTORY: WHY IT COMMANDS OUR ATTENTION Of all the projects my center, the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), has undertaken, none has generated as much high-level attention as the contents of this volume—four histories of disturbingly close calls when governments came close to losing control of their nuclear arsenals during political crises. Certainly, the number and seniority of current and for- mer officials attending the rollout of this research by my center and the Fondation pour la Recherche Straté- gique was impressive: an Assistant Secretary of State; the national intelligence officer in charge of Southwest Asia; a former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deputy director for safeguards; two former members of the National Security Council; and sev- eral senior staffers from State, Defense, Energy, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The officials’ interest in these histories is under- standable. Accounts of nuclear security crises that have taken place outside of the United States have gen- erally been cloaked in secrecy. Also, the drama associ- ated with these crises is significant. At the height of the Cultural Revolution, a Chinese long-range nuclear missile was fired within the country, and the nuclear warhead it was carrying detonated. A French nuclear device was exploded in Algeria during a coup. When the Soviet empire collapsed, shots were fired at a Rus- sian crowd intent on rushing a nuclear weapons-laden plane straining to remove a stash of nuclear weapons to a safer locale. Pakistani governments have been routinely pushed aside by a powerful nuclear-armed vii military. But expert observers worry that in the future, Pakistan’s powerful military might be divided against itself or held hostage by some faction that seizes con- trol of some portion of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. How could one not be interested to learn more? Yet, for all of this, it is unclear just what these sto- ries teach. It certainly would be a mistake to assume that they impart a list of specific policy prescriptions. With each case—the Algerian coup of 1961, the col- lapse of the Soviet Union, the Chinese Cultural Revo- lution, and the series of Pakistani crises dating back to the 1980s—the circumstances were so unique it is difficult to draw recommendations that would be very useful today. The reasons why are nonintuitive. First, the tech- nical challenges each government encountered and the fixes they employed to maintain control over their arsenals were not only different in each instance, but arguably unique to the era when the crisis occurred. Whatever specific technical solution a government might have employed to prevent a past nuclear secu- rity crisis, then, is not necessarily the one another gov- ernment would be advised to use today. Second, and far more important, each and every nuclear security crisis is and will always be driven by a unique set of human actors, individuals, or groups whose thoughts and intentions, both then and now, are largely beyond anyone’s ability to pre- cisely pin down. This presents an immediate histori- cal challenge: How does one determine or prove what key individuals thought or intended to do in the past when it may be in their interest now to embellish or lie? This matters enormously, since no matter how “secure” one tries to make nuclear weapons assets procedurally or technically, individuals with enough viii authority or access can elect to override or find ways around such protections. The political and organiza- tional solutions employed successfully in the past, therefore, may or may not work in the future. Such uncertainty is bewildering, because enhanc- ing the nuclear security of existing nuclear weapons arsenals and nuclear weapons-usable materials and plants is a high priority. Hundreds of tons of military and civilian nuclear weapons-usable materials are added to the world’s