Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications: A Primer on US Systems and Future Challenges

The United States is modernizing its nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) system to ensure effective deterrence in the digital age. However, the transition from analog to digital technologies poses security risks, including the potential for cyberattacks and unintended consequences. This volume provides an overview of the current NC3 system, its history, strategy, and technology, and the challenges of introducing digital technologies. It also explores the potential security threats and how the system could fail if these considerations are not taken into account. Policymakers, practitioners, and scholars will find this resource invaluable for understanding the current NC3 system, its relationship to effective deterrence, and how to ensure a safe and successful transition.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2022
Publisher: Georgetown University Press

The United States' current nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) system is facing significant challenges as it transitions from analog to digital technologies. While modernization is essential for the future success of NC3 systems, it also introduces vulnerabilities and unintended consequences. Nuclear infrastructure and command could be penetrated, corrupted, destroyed, or spoofed, leading to a loss of positive control (the ability to fire weapons) or negative control (the ability to prevent unauthorized or accidental use).

Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications explores the current NC3 system and its vital role in ensuring effective deterrence, contemporary challenges posed by cyber threats, new weapons technologies, and the consensus across the nuclear enterprise of the need to modernize the United States Cold War-era system of systems. This volume, edited by James J. Wirtz and Jeffrey A. Larsen, offers the first overview of US NC3 since the 1980s.

Part 1 provides an overview of the history, strategy, and technology associated with NC3 and how it enables deterrence strategy as the basis of national defense. Parts 2 and 3 identify how the US military's NC3 works, the challenges of introducing digital technologies and the potential security threats, and how the system could fail if these considerations are not taken into account. Part 4 explains the progress NC3 has made thus far, and how we might move forward.

During this critical juncture, policymakers, practitioners, and scholars will find this an invaluable resource to understanding our current NC3 system, its relationship to effective deterrence, and the need to modernize it to ensure the security of our nation and the world.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781647122447