It is likely that no “loose nukes” — nuclear weapons missing from their proper storage locations and available for purchase in some way — exist
This squares well with my weakly held prior, based on crude beliefs such that most dangers around terrorism are exaggerated.
However, I’m wondering how Mueller treats the question of whether we would know. E.g., during a 2007 incident in the US, several nuclear weapons were mistakenly loaded onto a bomber that was unguarded for hours at both its start and target locations; no-one realized the weapons were missing for about 36 hours, and the whole problem was only discovered once someone discovered the nukes in the bomber.
My guess is that nuclear weapons handling procedures would probably have uncovered eventually that some warheads were missing at the storage location. But as this incident illustrates it’s (i) unclear when, and (ii) there is room for human error (according to Schlosser’s Command and Control, the incident was only possible because four different crews failed to check whether the relevant missiles were loaded with nuclear warheads, even though all of them were supposed to).
Also note that there were a very small number (2-5 based on a loose memory) of accidents in which nuclear weapons were lost and, as far as we know, never recovered. E.g., over Canada in 1950, and in the sea near Japan in 1965. Of course, most likely these weapons haven’t been discovered by anyone, and thus are not “available for purchase”.
So while “likely” seems plausible to me, I find it hard to have extreme confidence in there being no “loose nukes”.
More relevantly, I’d hope that Mueller discusses all of these cases, or else I’d decrease my confidence in his claims.
This squares well with my weakly held prior, based on crude beliefs such that most dangers around terrorism are exaggerated.
However, I’m wondering how Mueller treats the question of whether we would know. E.g., during a 2007 incident in the US, several nuclear weapons were mistakenly loaded onto a bomber that was unguarded for hours at both its start and target locations; no-one realized the weapons were missing for about 36 hours, and the whole problem was only discovered once someone discovered the nukes in the bomber.
My guess is that nuclear weapons handling procedures would probably have uncovered eventually that some warheads were missing at the storage location. But as this incident illustrates it’s (i) unclear when, and (ii) there is room for human error (according to Schlosser’s Command and Control, the incident was only possible because four different crews failed to check whether the relevant missiles were loaded with nuclear warheads, even though all of them were supposed to).
Also note that there were a very small number (2-5 based on a loose memory) of accidents in which nuclear weapons were lost and, as far as we know, never recovered. E.g., over Canada in 1950, and in the sea near Japan in 1965. Of course, most likely these weapons haven’t been discovered by anyone, and thus are not “available for purchase”.
So while “likely” seems plausible to me, I find it hard to have extreme confidence in there being no “loose nukes”.
More relevantly, I’d hope that Mueller discusses all of these cases, or else I’d decrease my confidence in his claims.