Do our genes condemn us to war?
Little by little we human beings are confronted with situations that give us more and more clues that we aren't perfect.
—Fred Rogers
Dawn was still a promise on the horizon as the tugboats peeled away for their return to port. After gently nudging the massive submarine from the dock, the tugs shielded us from shoreline threats as we inched down the long channel connecting the submarine base at Kings Bay, Georgia, to the Atlantic Ocean. I had eagerly accepted an offer to ride atop the conning tower (the "sail") of the USS Pennsylvania on this one-day familiarization cruise. When we reached the open ocean, I found it exhilarating to watch such a magnificent machine being superbly handled, to feel the wind in my face, and to see the waves surge across the partially submerged hull. There was a feeling of speed, of power, and, quite honestly, of pride in being an American.
Later, in the control room, I was asked to sit at the diving station and operate the controls that submerged the ship. Personally, I would not have chosen a theoretical physicist—someone who has learned through painful experience to keep his hands in his pockets when around anything with moving or breakable parts—to submerge a ballistic missile submarine. Nevertheless, with help from the gruff (and somewhat nervous-looking) petty officer standing behind me, the evolution was completed without incident and soon we were cruising serenely three hundred feet beneath the surface of the sea.
The Trident class of ballistic missile submarines is the most powerful weapons system on earth. Over 500 feet long and weighing in at almost 19,000 tons, it is bigger and faster than a World War I battle cruiser. It was built for the sole purpose of carrying twenty-four D5 missiles, the most accurate long-range ballistic missiles ever developed, each capable of hurling multiple nuclear warheads over distances of thousands of miles with astonishing accuracy. A modern ballistic missile submarine can stay submerged for months at a time and is so quiet that even the most advanced sonar technology cannot locate it as it creeps along a patrol path known only to its captain and senior officers.
At the time of my short voyage in 2000, I was head of nuclear weapons programs at Los Alamos and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) at U.S. Strategic Command, the military organization that controlled all American nuclear weapons. The purpose of the cruise was to familiarize SAG members with the Trident submarine, and we enjoyed free run of the ship. Most impressive, as I always found when aboard navy ships, was the remarkable quality of the crew, both officers and enlisted, all of whom seemed truly enthusiastic about their jobs. Several of my colleagues and I chatted with the ship's nuclear reactor operators while they sat at their stations, patiently scanning dials and display screens. "Couldn't this be done automatically?" we asked. "Yes," they replied, "but in the event of damage to the ship it would take too long to regain situational awareness. We need to be able to respond instantly to keep power flowing to the engine and the other vital systems." In an environment unforgiving of mistakes, every eventuality was considered, every contingency planned. Absolute excellence was the minimum standard to be met.
Just aft of the sail was the beginning of the "missile house" with its two parallel rows of twelve rust-colored cylinders extending from the bottom to the top of the ship, each of which held a D5 missile with its several warheads. There was a wide corridor between them—almost an avenue, given the tight confines of a submarine—that gave...
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