Command and Control
by Eric Schlosser · first published 1848
74% recommend24% neutral1% critical
Why HN recommends it
Detailed history of US nuclear weapons control and safety, built around the Damascus accident and other near-misses. Suits readers who want a sobering look at how luck, bureaucracy and flawed safeguards averted disaster.
Common criticism: Some find the writing uneven and the book longer than its argument needs
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, comes an account of the management of nuclear weapons. Through accidents, near-misses, extraordinary heroism and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them?
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If this topic is an area of interest to you I can't recommend Eric Schlosser's book enough: "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety". It is a whole history of known accidents in the missle and aircraft domains that involved nuclear weapons.
on “A Burning B-52 Nearly Caused A Nuclear Catastrophe” ↗I would really recommend reading Eric Schlosser's phenomenal book Command and Control. I don't know who told you that about safety, but the book paints a very different picture. There have been numerous very close calls that could have resulted in accidental detonations and it's luck,…
on “Troubled covert agency responsible for trucking nuclear bombs across America” ↗Before discussing anything related to nuclear missiles *[Command and Control by Eric Schlosser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)) should be required reading. More missiles do not make the world safe, and due to human fallacy it almost always make us less…
on “The American Missile Crisis” ↗"Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety" by Eric Schlosser enumerates accidents related to nuclear weapons, many of which do not end in criticality due to sheer luck in most…
on “Safety lapses hobble Los Alamos National Lab’s work on U.S. nuclear warheads” ↗If you’re interested in this topic, I highly recommend the book “Command and Control” by Eric Schlosser which describes the details of America’s nuclear arms through the lens of an accident at a Titan II missile silo that could have gone very badly.
on “Nuclear Weapon Archive (1994-2020)” ↗…out, the US and the Soviet Union came perilously close to nuclear war on multiple occasions over the result of computer errors. (For an interesting look into the subject, I recommend Eric Schlosser's "Command and Control," a recently released history of nuclear weapons policy over the last 50 years). Banning autonomous or semi-autonomous tactical systems ("Terminators") seems misguided and impractical. These things will…
on “'Killer robots' ban must be part of Geneva talks, says campaign group” ↗Eric Schlosser's excellent book Command and Control covers the details of what happened when things went horribly wrong at a Titan missile silo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_ex...
on “The hidden base that could have ended the world” ↗Highly suggest reading "command and control" by eric schlosser (fast food nation). Terrifying but amazing book: https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill... I'm really not sure why we're still alive.
on “Troubled covert agency responsible for trucking nuclear bombs across America” ↗…Russian cities. Destruction of your own missiles by the already exploding weapons was actually seen as a significant issue that would lead to loss of many if not majority of weapons. Eric Schlosser's Command and Control is, as always, a great read about this.
on “Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy” ↗Another similar book is Command And Control by Eric Schlosser. It goes into a lot of detail about how nuclear weapons and their control systems evolved. Covers a number of accidents and near apocalypses along the way. One of my favorite books…
on “Cracks in US nuclear command and control” ↗Have a read of Eric Schlosser's book, Command and Control https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill... The ways we could end up in a nuclear war are frightening to the point of madness.
on “Nuclear war probabilities are useless - counter to the nuclear gambler’s ruin” ↗I rather enjoyed reading Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety which covers a few of these events in more detail, as well as the 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion[1] and some broader history…
on “The U.S. Military Is Missing Six Nuclear Weapons” ↗Command and Control by Eric Schlosser is a fun read.
on “FEMA Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation [pdf]” ↗…tests is not what bothers me. The number of times we have had accidents is what does. Thankfully, none has ever resulted in accidental detonation- but this involved a lot of luck. Eric Schlosser's book Command and Control, which just came out this year is a pretty comprehensive treatment of every accident the US has ever had, from decades of filing Freedom of Information reports. I'm halfway through it right now, it's…
on “A Deeply Unsettling Time Lapse Of Every Nuclear Explosion On Earth” ↗Command and Control kept me up reading well past when I should have been asleep many a night. I have a friend who grew up not far from the Damascus, AR silo, the story about which the book is structured around, which made…
on “Almost Everything in "Dr. Strangelove" Was True” ↗