“But you can bring it into the status where it is capable.”Ī command-and-control shift is one possibility, said James Acton, who co-directs the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The way I believe it works, and the way it’s supposed to work, is that normally, under the day-to-day status, the system is not capable of transmitting orders” to launch nuclear weapons, Podvig said in an interview with Defense One. My best guess is that he was referring to the way the command-and-control systems operate. “I don’t have absolute certainty what it means. “We’ve never heard announcements like that before,” said Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, or UNIDIR. Several experts said that Putin’s order might have been most directly about nuclear command-and-control. Many news organizations interpreted the order as placing Russia’s nuclear weapons units on a higher state of alert. defense official who spoke to reporters on Sunday called the move “escalatory” but declined to offer more details. Kenney and Bradley PenistonĮven expert Russia-watchers aren’t sure what changed when Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s “deterrence forces” to be put on a “special regime of combat duty” on Sunday.Ī U.S. officials are calling it escalatory–but not “high alert.”īy Caitlin M. What Just Happened With Putin’s Nuclear Forces? Here’s What Experts Say What just happened with Putin's NUCLEAR forces? Just a few ideas to get more warning than it seems our current purveyors of civilian defense information seem to think necessary. If you drive up there someone with a sidearm will flag you down and ask why you need to take that road instead of the detour before you ever get near the entrances to the base. When the base is on standby alert (not an official term, I'm a civil defense dino) traffic reports start talking about road conditions that cause detours around access roads to the base. I've never heard an announcement about civilian and dependent evacuation, but most of the families and contractors on base won't usually decide to go on vacation all at once. The roads between the base and the closest airport will fill up an unusual amount for a non-holiday period. If things get really critical the base will send dependents and civilian contractors out. When things get serious traffic reports outside the base here indicate the jump as those who live off base are called in all at once. If you suddenly notice there aren't any people with really good posture BS'ing while having breakfast/lunch, you might want to start listening to the news more closely. The change is easy to spot if you grab a coffee a couple times a week at fast food places just outside the base. As things escalate they'll start restricting access first to people without military IDs, then escalating to access only for those on active duty.Ī very late indicator that would make me visit the privy is to see military members themselves disappear from venues off base, but a lot of military families with full vehicles on the road (look for the parking stickers and decals). The air base near me is very much open even without military ID if you have a DOD sponsor invite you in. Most bases have a public webpage click on visitor info and it will tell you who's allowed on base at any given time. What you might hear, particularly as the President just recently reaffirmed DHS's part in heightened precautions, is a heightened terrorism alert condition which is on the DHS website.įrom hanging about for many years during the Cold War, I'd say a better indicator of heightened alert is whether the local bases (particularly air bases) are suddenly restricting access.
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