'ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook
November 20, 1998 Volume 3, No. 43
Published by the Information Technology Association of America, Arlington, VA
Bob Cohen, Editor bcohen@itaa.org
Read in over 80 countries around the world
ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook is published every Friday to help all organizations
deal more effectively with the Year 2000 software conversion. To create a
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ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook is sponsored in part by CACI International Inc., DMR
Consulting Group Inc., and Y2Kplus
Report Puts Y2K Bug at Ground Zero
Too bad Halloween is in October. A report released this month by the British
American Security Information Council (BASIC) on Y2K and the world's nuclear
arsenal makes for some tense reading. The Bug in the Bomb: The Impact of the
Year 2000 Problem on Nuclear Weapons comes off with a bang, arguing that the
U.S. Department of Defense is essentially bungling its date conversion mission.
The report argues that current U.S. and Russian defense strategies like "launch
on warning" should be scrapped in response to the date bug, and that nuclear
powers should stand-down their nuclear operations, adopting a "safety-first"
approach.
The basic mission at BASIC is nuclear disarmament, so it should come as no
surprise that the group sees Y2K as just one more good reason to pull the plug
on the world's nuclear missiles. The point is readily conceded by report author
Michael Kraig, a Scoville Fellow at BASIC, who indicates that using an issue
like Y2K to advance an agenda is just business as usual among non-governmental
organizations. He also stresses that Y2K errors alone are extremely unlikely to
cause warheads to detonate or missiles to be fired by mistake.
Having said that, however, Kraig builds the type of Strangelovian case that
could conceivably bring the world to the nuclear brink.
Like so much in the Y2K realm, it all comes down to timing. In this case, Kraig
is concerned about the amount of time political leaders have to call off a
nuclear attack. The Cold War may be over, but the U.S. and Russia still
maintain command, control, communication and intelligence (C3I) systems,
bringing them eyeball-to-eyeball and enabling them to adopt launch on warning
defensive postures, according to Kraig. The goal of this strategy is a massive
pre-emptive strike in response to an initial nuclear attack. Accurate,
verifiable information to confirm the reality of such an attack is critical to
avoid cataclysmic mistakes. And that information must be gleaned in 30 minutes
or so--all the time that may stand between modern society and the Planet of the
Apes.
So what happens if Y2K is a sharp stick in the eye of one of these critical
surveillance systems, eliminating verification information or cutting in half
the amount of time the President has to react? C3I systems are composed of
multiple integrated subsystems, including satellites, receiving stations,
radars, and computers. "…the breakdown of even a few components in the C3I
network could cause partial early warning blackouts that would severely truncate
the decision time available to political leaders and military officials," the
report notes.
Suppose, for instance, that infrared satellites pick up evidence of a missile
launch, but Y2K problems have caused a blackout in a particular Ballistic
Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) radar corridor. According to the BASIC
report, "officials would be hard-pressed to verify the initial launch evidence
given by [Defense Support Project] satellites. Data sources would then include
only the first indications of attack by satellite, prior intelligence
indications of preparatory military maneuvers, and the explosion of one or more
warheads on US territory. This would represent a seriously unstable and
potentially catastrophic development under a 'launch on warning' regime…"
"If Y2K breakdowns produce inaccurate early-warning data, or if communications
and command channels are compromised, the combination of hair-trigger force
postures and Y2K failures could be disastrous," the report warns.
The BASIC report argues that any new breaks in the chain make a bad situation
worse. Pre-launch intelligence, it claims, "is notoriously faulty and
deficient." Satellites blink out for reasons that have nothing to do with Y2K
and bad eye-in-the-sky data has sent NORAD commanders into "missile event
conferences" in "hundreds of cases."
While DoD is thankfully adept at screening out electronic garbage and keeping
the missiles in the silos, the Pentagon has been far less effective at targeting
the Millennium bug, according to BASIC:
"Initial research findings by a number of different agencies and teams of
experts both inside and outside the Department of Defense have resulted in no
confidence that the Pentagon's present program will meet the Year 2000
challenge."
The report charges America's war fighting machine with having "no general theory
or methodology" for assessing Y2K compliance, expresses concerns about the
reluctance of DoD to share information, cites a lack of Congressional oversight
about the defense-related aspects of the Y2K situation, and charges: "…there
are severe and recurring problems across the entire DoD Y2K remediation program,
including ill-defined concepts and operating procedures, ad-hoc funding and
imprecise estimates for final costs, lax management, insufficient standards for
declaring systems 'Y2K compliant,' insufficient contingency planning in case of
Y2K-related failures, and poor inter-departmental communications."
Clamming up maybe one major Defense strategy in response to its Y2K conundrum.
Here's an example. DoD has used the Defense Integrated Support Tool (DIST)
database as a repository of Y2K status and readiness information for systems
throughout the military. Given the nature of DoD's interlocking systems, the
DIST was intended to provide Y2K remediators in the defense establishment with
a ready resource for sharing system compliance and interface information. But
the wheels began to fall off the DIST battlewagon when the General Accounting
Office (GAO) and DoD Inspector General's office reported the database contained
incomplete, imprecise, outdated and duplicate information.
"Whatever its faults, this method of information sharing was dismantled on early
February 1998," the BASIC report notes, when the National Security Agency (NSA),
fearing info terrorists, classified the DIST top secret. The move put efforts
towards integration and cooperation among DoD components in a black hole. "Any
incomplete cross-department remediation efforts being carried out by staff
without top secret clearance were effectively halted in midstream," BASIC
claims.
Even words coming down from the top seem to be up in the air. The BASIC report
questions assertions by DoD Deputy Secretary John Hamre that all mission
critical nuclear systems have been fixed and only 100 mission critical systems
overall remain to be repaired. Systems in both categories are supposed to be
ready for validation testing by January 1999.
No so, according to the think tank. The report cites Admiral Richard Mies,
Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Command (STRATCOM), stating in a closed door
September meeting that eleven crucial STRATCOM nuclear systems would fail to
meet a revised December repair deadline. "Mies added that twelve new systems
currently in development will not be compliant with Y2K program standards,"
according to the report.
If the world's most powerful nation is taking on water as the result of its Y2K
problems, what's the situation like on the other side of the nuclear pond?
Clearly, no one is yellin' the praises of Boris Yeltsin. At least not where
Y2K is concerned. "The civilian and military leaders of Russian nuclear weapons
systems and C3I have thus far steadfastly denied that there will be Y2K
difficulties for the country's nuclear forces." Russia uses "special
technologies" according to Igor Sergeyev, the nation's Defense Minister, thereby
sidestepping Y2K problems in its nuclear forces.
How "special" such technologies are is highly debatable. BASIC suggests they
are old and obsolete. "Russia's decaying nuclear systems are…in danger of Y2K
failures…" the report states. Russian defense systems utilize "wired logic
systems" which are factory sealed and harder to fix, according to a Russian
technician quoted in the report.
Report author Michael Kraig says the U.S., Russia and other nuclear powers-if
unwilling to disarm completely-should at least consider taking intermediate
steps that would add critical hours, days or even weeks to a launch countdown.
In nuke-speak, this is called "de-alerting." BASIC says such steps could
include de-coupling warheads from missiles, removing nose-cones from warhead
bodies, and "pit stuffing," which packs the core of the warhead with wire and
prohibits it from exploding.
While Kraig says such approaches "run up against the wall" of the STRATCOM
planning apparatus, other trends may be converging to make the timing right for
a new discussion of the issues. According to Kraig, Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) has
suggested unilateral cuts in U.S. nuclear arms to SALT II levels and a
Congressional Budget Office ordered by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle raises
a series of options for shoring up Russia's shaky C3I infrastructure. Such
options include early-warning information sharing, transfer of 1970s-vintage
satellite sensor and data processing technology, payments to Russian scientists
for the integration of western sensor technology, even funding a buildup of
Russian research into next generation technology.
America funding Russian research into advanced C3I technology? Sounds like the
stuff of Hollywood movies or liberal think tanks. Kraig admits that the old
guard in Congress is unlikely to abandon a "launch on alert" national defense
posture, Y2K problems or not. He claims, however, a group of new Republicans
may indeed be questioning the need to have thousands of warheads "on hair
trigger alert."
Is Y2K likely to bring new life to the nuclear disarmament discussion? "The
dangers of Y2K-induced nuclear systems failure are of sufficient probability and
magnitude to warrant serious and immediate action by the President, Congress,
the Pentagon, governmental investigative branches, outside experts, and the
public," BASIC says, adding, "The principle informing such action should be to
insure that safety takes precedence over force readiness." Tough choices to be
sure with thoroughly unpredictable consequences.
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