US Strategic Command Tweets Error-Ridden Story About Nuclear Arsenal

On Wednesday, the official Twitter page of the U.S. Strategic Command — who are in charge of U.S. nukes — posted a tweet along with the link to an article which contained false and factually incorrect information about U.S. nuclear arsenals.

The article was originally published on NBC-affiliated television station KPNX on Nov. 14. It contained two major flaws which were pointed out by nuclear experts on Twitter soon after the tweet was posted.

The KPNX article talked about the U.S. military submarine, the U.S.S. Kentucky, describing its weapons systems and also talking about its crew members to a certain extent.

The article stated in a paragraph, "The U.S.S. Kentucky is part of what is called the 'nuclear triad.' The triad are the three components of a nuclear defense system: land-based missiles fired from secret silos, B-1 bombers that can drop them from the air, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles."

This here is the first flaw. The U.S. do not have “secret” silos. According to a report by the Two-Way, an NPR-affiliated site, the silos are not hidden as people can find them on Google Maps. The report also went ahead and gave the location of one of the silos.

The report also said that U.S. silos and bunkers are visited by military agencies of foreign nations, including Russia, who keep keep checking from time to time whether the U.S. is in breach of international arms-control treaties.

The second flaw is that the B-1 bomber is not capable of deploying nuclear bombs. According to a report by Military.com in July, the B-1 bomber could have been made nuclear capable if enough funds and time were allocated to the project.

However, that was not something which was in the planning books of the U.S. government, the report said.

Right after the tweet was posted, nuclear expert from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vipin Narang, tweeted, saying, “What the hell guys. C’mon. Secret silos and B-1s? Don’t spread false information through the official handle.”

North Korean security expert, Van Jackson, also tweeted about his opinion on this blunder, which has the potential to turn into a major bilateral misunderstanding between Washington and Pyongyang.

According to Vox, the tweet comes at a time when tensions between both the nations are high. Not normal tensions, but nuclear tensions. The report also said that if the U.S. military flies a B-1 bomber over the Korean Peninsula, even during a training exercise, North Korea might think of it as a nuclear threat, which in reality is not the case.

To make matters worse, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un don't see eye to eye while their communication with each other, if any, can hardly be called "transparent."

However, the U.S. Strategic Command responded through their Twitter page, acknowledging the mistake and tagging the journalist of the article; they said they have contacted the reporter to rectify the mistake.

They also claimed that the article gave a good understanding of life in a ballistic missile submarine.