@article{ref1,
title="Accidental Nuclear War: A Risk Assessment",
journal="Journal of peace research",
year="1986",
author="Wallace, Michael D. and Crissey, Brian L. and Sennott, Linn I.",
volume="23",
number="1",
pages="9-27",
abstract="Recent developments in strategic weaponry have led to increasing fears that the danger of war by accident or inadvertence is growing. In particular, the deployments of 'fast-attack' systems with short flight times, combined with the growing complexity and automation of strategic warning and command and control systems, has given rise to the belief that during a major international crisis there would be insufficient time to distinguish false alarms from an actual warning of an enemy attack. An examination of a mathematical model of the warning and launch sequence that would follow from a strategic alarm suggests strongly that there would be almost no time to make such a decision unless a 'launch-on-warning' strategic posture were adopted. There is evidence to suggest that in fact both superpowers believe they would be forced to adopt such a policy in the event of a serious crisis. Given a 'launch-on-warning' posture, an examination of available data on false alarms provided by NORAD leads to the conclusion that a false alarm sufficiently severe to trigger a strategic attack would occur about 50% of the time during a lengthy crisis. This finding highlights the urgent need for the superpowers to undertake co-operative measures to reduce the risk of war by accident, including the dismantling of short flight time systems and undertaking major improvements in their ability to communicate and to co-ordinate their actions in time of crisis.<p />",
language="",
issn="0022-3433",
doi="10.1177/002234338602300102",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002234338602300102"
}