A New Nuclear Age

Utilizing highly automated systems and new, higher-bandwidth satellites, military planners expect to be able to still function even after a nuclear attack. The systems will incorporate such things as secure video teleconferencing and voice recognition software to ensure security. A constellation of up to five advanced satellites costing more than $400 million apiece will be launched into orbit beginning in 2006 to enable secure communications between the president and the country's nuclear forces.

The expanded communications systems will have both fixed and mobile communications terminals in at least 31 states and seven foreign countries, as well as at numerous classified sites, according to military documents. Terminals will be placed in military headquarters, at missile launch sites, on bombers and other aircraft supporting nuclear warfare and on submarines and support ships. When fully operational in 2010, the system will provide "survivable" terminals to connect underground nuclear command centers and nuclear forces. Even the paging devices of bomber crews on nuclear alert will be connected to the system.

But the real innovation is the 69 "transportable terminals" small enough to be set up, operated and maintained by one person. These communications terminals will be designed to "reliably operate in pre- through post-nuclear environments," according to an official "statement of objectives" for the project. A December 2002 "operational requirements document" outlines how, as tension levels increase, mobile support teams would be sent with these terminals to secret locations. In the event of nuclear war, the mobile teams would restaff command posts, bombers and tankers. They would rendezvous with submarines and transport new nuclear weapons to surviving units capable of delivering them.

The new systems are just one part of the military's implementation of the more aggressive nuclear war strategies laid out in the Nuclear Posture Review. In June 2002, the Navy and the Air Force rolled out a new system that would allow for the reception of emergency messages during or after a nuclear attack even if other communications systems had failed. Because the system operates on a low frequency, it is slow, but that also means it isn't subject to the same disruptions from electromagnetic pulses that could interrupt most other systems after a nuclear explosion.