Nuclear war is defined by horrific paradoxes. Weapons that are fast and accurate are more likely to precipitate Wolrd War 3, with a scenario of a border skirmish leading to a "use it or lose" mentality that devolves to a general apocalypse. "Counter-value" weapons, the ones deemed least likely to actually be fired, are only useful for massacring millions of civilians in futile revenge. Nuclear weapons are so serious that they should be fired only with authorization from the highest of commands, but the President will be the first target of an attack. The basic paradox is encapsulated in "always/never", a stated design goal of the Atomic weapons complex. A bomb should always explode when it is needed, and never explode otherwise.

Schlosser traces the dangerous history of nuclear weapons, full of near-misses and lucky accident, in parallel with the 1980 Damascus Incident at a Titan II silo in Arkansas. At Damascus, during a routine refueling a dropped socket wrench penetrated the oxidizer tank of the massive ICBM, spilling thousands of gallons of nitrogen tetroxide. The crew of the silo and response teams from nearby airbases faced a rapidly evolving disaster. The Titan II was essentially an aluminum balloon, and when enough oxidizer vented the missile would collapse and explode. Or the oxidizer could explode due to a spark. The response was complicated by having to work in a cloud of toxic fumes wearing heavy and balky hazmat suits, and poor communication channels between the silo, the Airforce base at Little Rock, and SAC HQ, which tried to manage the response at long distance. Eventually, time ran out and the missile exploded. One crew member, David Livingston, eventually died of wounds and nitrogen tetroxide exposure. The official report scapegoated Livingston, the only casaulty of the accident, and exonerated SAC command, despite decades of ignoring complaints about hazards involved with the Titan II.

The drama of the Damascus incident is interleaved with the broader story of nuclear weapons. Schlosser traces the absurdity and obscenity of nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War. The bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were hand-built experimental devices. The arguments over control of America's nuclear stockpile between the Air Force, Navy, and civil Atomic Energy Commission, were done in ignorance that the 'stockpile' was as low as a single weapon, which would have to undergo weeks of assembly before it could be mated to a B-29 and dropped. As the Cold War spun up, second generation weapons were dispatched to airborne and forward alerts, which exposed them to the vagaries of aviation and overseas security that was nominal at best. It is a miracle that a bomb did not accidentally explode, or was not stolen by terrorists or coup-oriented NATO officers. Finally, the realities of nuclear war were universes apart from the theories of defense planners like McNamara and Kissinger. If the ball went up, America would deploy the SIOP (single integrated operations plan), which on a "go code" would unleash 10 hours of thermonuclear devastation on the USSR, China, and Eastern Europe. Thousands of bombs would drop, millions of people would die. The SIOP could not be altered or stopped. Theories of nuclear strategy which involved pauses to negotiate before the absolute end of the world, or limited destruction, had no physical means by which they could be implemented. The communication networks simply didn't exist to actually control a nuclear war in progress, even if the President were somehow still alive. The survivors would probably envy the dead.

Though the 21st century has reduced the risk of a nuclear war between superpowers, the bombs are still very much real, and proliferation increases the risks that a second sun will light on Earth, whether as part of clash between India and Pakistan or Israel and Iran, or simply by accident. We have been very very lucky, but eventually those snake-eyes will come up.

I'll confess to having strange attitudes towards nuclear war. I don't remember the Cold War at all, and I've probably learned to stop worrying and love the bomb a little too much, through atomic kitsch media like the video games Fallout and DEFCON, or even deserved classics like Dr. Strangelove. Command and Control is absolutely my jam. If you react with revulsion to nuclear weapons, like a normal person, this may not be. Still, an amazing book, and I'm somewhat amazed that I waited this long to read it.

Now Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb is staring at me from the shelf...