I sometimes despair that the world has moved beyond satire, but then something happens to renew my faith in absurdity. Take, for example, U.S. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel's announcement of a complete shake-up in the management of his country's nuclear arsenal, which has, in recent years, been almost comically mismanaged. "The good news," Mr. Hagel told reporters, "is there has been no nuclear exchange in the world."
Yes, that is good news. So far, there has been no mushroom cloud over Washington or Moscow. And if you think I'm being flippant about the prospect of global destruction, I will defer to the military man in charge of America's thousands of warheads, Admiral Cecil Haney of Strategic Air Command, who noted at the same press conference, "You don't see the mushroom cloud or that sort of thing. We must continue that."
While not quite up there with "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here – this is the war room!" the announcement had wonderful Strangelovian moments, in addition to the ones mentioned above. Mr. Hagel, who before he was Defence Secretary made a public commitment to a nuke-free world, reasserted the importance of America's aging, poorly managed nuclear arsenal as a deterrent. Then he talked about how bad things have become: In one case, only a single wrench existed to repair Minuteman 3 missiles at three U.S. bases. In order for the world's deadliest weapons to be ready for launch at the drop of a hat (or the request of a president), the tool was FedExed back and forth. Really.
Perhaps you didn't hear about Mr. Hagel's momentous plans for curing his ailing nuclear organization (including an extra $10-billion in defence spending over five years). It wasn't exactly a hot topic in the news media. This is not surprising, because North America has truly frightening things to worry about, like the epidemic of Ebola that is washing ashore. Or the equally terrifying scourge of job-stealing undocumented immigrants. Or a lack of parking at malls on Black Friday.
The desire to ignore the most dangerous weapons ever created, to pretend they don't exist, is perfectly understandable. If you thought about them too much, particularly how they're looked after, you might never get out of bed.
A lot of the bad news Mr. Hagel was referring to was dug up by Robert Burns of the Associated Press. We're talking allegations of drug abuse among the men and women guarding the missile silos, officers cheating on basic proficiency tests and a culture of blame-avoiding that goes right to the top. This wouldn't be so bad in a widget factory, but it's cause for alarm in the Armageddon factory: Consider that in 2007, six armed warheads were accidentally placed on a military plane in North Dakota and went missing for a day and a half. (The pilot had no idea of his cargo.) And that's just America. I shudder to think of the shenanigans at the rest of the world's nuclear stockpiles.
Just last year, the man overseeing America's 450 ICBM missiles, General Michael Carey, was sacked after a particularly rambunctious tour of Russia, in which he got so drunk he couldn't stand, cavorted with "suspect" Russian women, tried to join a Mexican band playing in a restaurant and insulted his hosts by telling them that "he saves the world from war every day." At this point, a walk-on by Dr. Strangelove would be welcome relief.
The reason for the "rot" in the nuclear command, as one high-ranking Air Force officer described it in a secret memo obtained by AP, is obvious but difficult to remedy: The work of babysitting missiles is both singularly menacing and brain-numbingly tedious. Josh Harkinson, in a current Mother Jones story called Death Wears Bunny Slippers, describes it this way: "An accident resulting from human error … may be actually more likely today because the weapons are so unlikely to be used. Without the urgent sense of purpose the Cold War provided, the young men (and a handful of women) who work with the world's most dangerous weapons are left logging their 24-hour shifts under subpar conditions – with all the dangers that follow."
There is a solution in the long term, and it's one that Mr. Hagel used to espouse. His boss did, too. In 2009, fresh with hope, Barack Obama made a historic speech in Prague in which he pledged "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." Five years later, that promise, too, seems like a joke.