‘Super-Fuzed’ Warheads on U.S. Navy Subs Risk Sparking an Accidental Nuclear War

War is Boring

by JOHN BAKER

On March 1, 2017, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists released a major scoopthat has extremely worrisome implications for U.S.-Russian relations and the risk of nuclear war. The story, by Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie and Theodore Postol, concerns a new technical capability called “super-fuzing” that dramatically increases the lethality of the United States’ submarine-launched nuclear weapons.

Much of the report is given over to technical descriptions, but the gist of the story is this — the W76–1 naval warhead is now three times as lethal as before, and this massive expansion of kill capability makes it look like the United States is preparing for a decapitating nuclear attack.

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