PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — On Jan. 25, 1995, when few people had heard of the Y2K computer glitch, the United States launched a research rocket from Norway, hoping to learn about the northern lights.
But on Russian radar screens, the four-stage rocket exactly matched the profile of a Trident-launched nuclear missile, harbinger of an all-out American nuclear attack. President Boris N. Yeltsin came within eight minutes of launching a counterattack.
That brush with nuclear catastrophe has led the two countries to use the dawning of the new millennium as an opportunity to carry out their first joint nuclear operation. Since Thursday, teams of American and Russian military personnel have been sitting side by side in a $4.5-million monitoring center here, watching for any sign of missiles launched by one side against the other.
Even before the calendar turned over, they detected three Russian Scud missiles fired on the rebellious province of Chechnya. The joint operation was limited to monitoring launchings of 500 kilometers or more, however, and the Russian Scuds fell comfortably below that limit.
The American and Russian personnel here plan to keep looking for Y2K-related launchings until Jan. 15, when all possible computer-generated problems are expected to have worked their way through the two countries' surveillance electronics.
"On the very, very off chance that a computer goes wrong" and indicates an intercontinental missile launch, "we're offering an extra set of eyes and ears," said Air Force Col. Donald Knight, the senior American officer for the operation's first shift.
Experts have never worried that the millennial rollover could somehow trigger a spontaneous missile launch. Both the United States and Russia have been stating for months that their missile systems are impervious to the Y2K bug. The real danger, experts say, is that a failing early-warning instrument--a satellite component, a radar array or one of the many electronic systems that encode, transmit and interpret the data they gather--could falsely report a nuclear launch.
And since the launch sequence does not allow much time to check the quality of the data--on both sides, the decision to retaliate must be made in 6 to 10 minutes--a false alarm could have unthinkable consequences.
Still Heavily Armed and on High Alert
