Scary

Not directly related to Social Policy Bonds, but fascinating all the same. A letter from Raimondo Salomonem of New York, pubished in today's International Herald Tribune:

The problem with nuclear weapons is that there is never room for even the slightest error. If any nation, or a non-state actor launches a missile, the consequences would be catastrophic. There has been more than one very close call in the past. In 1988, in the mud-caked woods of West Germany, I was stationed on the front lines of the Cold War. I was a member of a Pershing II nuclear missile-launch team. Our missiles were aimed at Moscow and were capable of zeroing in on a trash pail in Red Square. One rainy night, during a field expedition, a sergeant accidentally allowed the tail end of a 40-foot long launch trailer to slide off the road into a ditch. This forced the missile on the trailer's bed to point its nose up to the sky.

Years later, I read a book written by a Soviet defense official who recounted how they locked on that missile - the reports they received said the missile had been erected in what was considered an extremely hostile offensive maneuver. Until we managed many hours later to tow the trailer out of the ditch, the Soviets had been on a heightened state of alert. It was only until they saw us secure the missile in a hangar that they stood down. A sad fact, among many potentially sad facts in this incident, was that the missile in question was a dummy, used only for training. This was a very close call that brought us perilously close to the type of flash point that would send the world into destruction. Forget treaties. Future leaders should hold summit meetings, not fishing trips. When the subject of global warming comes up in conversation, I silently hope to myself that we will be around long enough to see if it happens.