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To launch a nuclear counter-attack you can’t just say “ICBM headed for NYC according to radar in Canada” you have to establish WHO it came from to determine who to retaliate and fire against.
The risk is multiple failures at once. Multiple radars could fail in parallel and give the illusion of misses being launched from a specific target (for example an Icelandic and Canadian radar can fail in parallel and create the illusion of Russian missiles en route to NY). Any failure that severe would be a Swiss cheese failure.
The risk of American systems being ancient is that legacy systems can fail due to old age, extending them has risk, and they are likely victim to certain issues prevalent when they are created.
The risk of “Zionist vibecoders” isn’t hackers but their own missiles and early warning radar. Intentional use of nuclear weapons is probably a larger threat from Israel. If their regime starts to fall, they will invoke the Samson Option and attack all nations in the AoR and potentially even their allies as a means to require support, although that is disputed.
The US military makes plenty of mistakes that rise tensions to DEFCON 2 or 3, (and even DEFCON 1 once due to a faulty radio message). They’ve crashed countless nuclear armed strategic bombers, dropped bombs by mistake, and lost bombs. When tensions are higher, it takes less to launch, and people make more mistakes.
This is also just talking about US mistakes. Dead Hand could easily have a malfunction, if France loses a bomb around the time of a terrorist attack they’d likely launch at their enemy of the week, Pakistan or India could each have a radar failure and they run at higher alertness than the US, or the DPRK could make a mistake.
Reported close calls in the US happen relatively frequently, and a period of fewer close calls or a country without any doesn’t mean they they didn’t happen— only that the incident is classified.
I don’t think that intentional nuclear war would start with the US in the next few decades because a full scale attack would only be a net gain if there was a credible risk of the end of the US, which there isn’t as it stands. The largest intentional danger is Israel because there exists a possibility that the country is invaded or dissolved within the next decade, and their doctrine holds a full scale launch preferable to the end of the Zionist project (see the Samson Option). There’s also a huge risk with India and Pakistan due to how many flare ups there are in Kashmir, although hot conflict also increases risk for accidental launches.
The risk is multiple failures at once. Multiple radars could fail in parallel and give the illusion of misses being launched from a specific target (for example an Icelandic and Canadian radar can fail in parallel and create the illusion of Russian missiles en route to NY). Any failure that severe would be a Swiss cheese failure.
The risk of American systems being ancient is that legacy systems can fail due to old age, extending them has risk, and they are likely victim to certain issues prevalent when they are created.
The risk of “Zionist vibecoders” isn’t hackers but their own missiles and early warning radar. Intentional use of nuclear weapons is probably a larger threat from Israel. If their regime starts to fall, they will invoke the Samson Option and attack all nations in the AoR and potentially even their allies as a means to require support, although that is disputed.
The US military makes plenty of mistakes that rise tensions to DEFCON 2 or 3, (and even DEFCON 1 once due to a faulty radio message). They’ve crashed countless nuclear armed strategic bombers, dropped bombs by mistake, and lost bombs. When tensions are higher, it takes less to launch, and people make more mistakes.
This is also just talking about US mistakes. Dead Hand could easily have a malfunction, if France loses a bomb around the time of a terrorist attack they’d likely launch at their enemy of the week, Pakistan or India could each have a radar failure and they run at higher alertness than the US, or the DPRK could make a mistake.
Reported close calls in the US happen relatively frequently, and a period of fewer close calls or a country without any doesn’t mean they they didn’t happen— only that the incident is classified.
I don’t think that intentional nuclear war would start with the US in the next few decades because a full scale attack would only be a net gain if there was a credible risk of the end of the US, which there isn’t as it stands. The largest intentional danger is Israel because there exists a possibility that the country is invaded or dissolved within the next decade, and their doctrine holds a full scale launch preferable to the end of the Zionist project (see the Samson Option). There’s also a huge risk with India and Pakistan due to how many flare ups there are in Kashmir, although hot conflict also increases risk for accidental launches.