Nuclear Nose Cones Mistakenly Shipped to Taiwan

Reservoir Hill writes "The Pentagon announced that the United States had mistakenly shipped to Taiwan four electrical fuses designed for use on intercontinental ballistic missiles, but has since recovered them. The mistaken shipment to Taiwan did not include nuclear materials, although the fuses are linked to the triggering mechanism in the nose cone of a Minuteman nuclear missile. Taiwanese authorities notified U.S. officials of the mistake, but it was not clear when the notification was made. An examination of the site in Taiwan where the components had been stored after delivery indicated that they had not been tampered with. The fuses had been in four shipping containers sent in March 2005 from F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., to a Defense Logisitics Agency warehouse at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. It was then in the logistics agency's control and was shipped to Taiwan "on or around" August 2006, according to a memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordering Navy Adm. Kirkland H. Donald to investigate the incident."

Funny how many ppl believe it

[WindBourne]

I have written about this before. I worked at a job before where we designed special hardware/software for sale to several different 3 letter agencies. It was interesting work. But at one time, we went out to find funding. One of them was a Taiwanese guy from Loveland CO. He had recently sold a Chinese restaurant there. He wanted to fund us, but wanted full access to the hardware. In particular, he wanted the ability to take this to Mainland china. He said that he could sell it for a bundle (and he would have gotten millions more for it there, than we were able to sell it here). Even we told him that this was prevented from leaving the country, he still wanted to own if the company collapsed. When pointed out that the code hardware would have to go back to a different company, he was upset with it. All in all, this man saw no difference between mainland vs. taiwan. In fact, I would say that he viewed it more as China vs. America. And this man had grown up in Taiwan.

"Fuze" is probably a small radar

[Animats]

If it's the "fuse" in the "nose cone", it's probably the radar proximity fuze, used to detonate a nuclear weapon at a specific height above ground. This is essential only for ICBMs intended for use against hardened targets, where the detonation has to occur at just the right height to maximize the blast effect against something like a missile silo lid.

If you're delivering your bomb in a Ryder truck, this component is unnecessary.

Dear Mr. Pentagon:

[Hyppy]

Dear Mister Pentagon,
Please ship me a Peacekeeper [army.mil] missile [modeltrainjournal.com]. They're really pretty.
Sincerely,
Hyppy

Real-politick and espionage

[alexhmit01]

Well, if the US notifies China (PRC) that it is giving China/Taiwan (ROC) nuclear weapons, China goes to war with US, embargoes Taiwan, etc.

If US gives ROC weapons, and nobodies knows, there is no deterrent, we violate agreements, and generally encourage proliferation.

If US just plants a news story about the parts, then PRC doesn't know, "shipping error" creates plausible deniability. PRC can't make a scene, but can wonder, does the ROC have a nuke now.

PRC doesn't care about being depopulated, but 4-10 nuclear weapons might do a number on those shiny new factories that they are building.

Re:Nosecones?

[sm62704]

The electronics and detonation systems used in nuclear bombs are very advanced, and very difficult to get right

When they say "fuse" are they referring to a piece of solder or lead designed to melt when subjected to an overcurrent, or (as you imply) is it something more dangerous and sinister?

Re:Why is this reported?

[Hal_Porter]

I'm in Taiwan at the moment.

Taiwan has just had an election and Chen Shui Bian [wikipedia.org] who was basically in favour of formal independence (which would cause China to attack) has been replaced with Ma Ying Jeou [wikipedia.org] who's policy is "no independence, no unification and no war" and trying to increase economic ties with China and possibly sign some sort of peace treaty. The US strongly supports this since they don't want a war between large but totalitarian China and small but democratic Taiwan which they might get dragged into. Taiwan elects its own leaders, has its own army and so on anyway, and is a rich free country, quite unlike China. Formal independence wouldn't actually do any good, but it might do a lot of bad by triggering a full on war.

No I've no idea what the story behind all this, but I guess the US and/or Taiwan have decided to disclose this rather than risk China finding out about it later. Taiwan having nuclear weapons is one of the things that would cause the China to attack [wikipedia.org]. Since China is in scheming mode rather than bullying mode because of the Taiwanese election result, maybe now is as good a time to make the announcement as any.

Even when the US still had diplomatic relations with Taiwan instead of China, they forced Taiwan to dismantle some nuclear facilities [globalsecurity.org] to reduce the risk that they provoke a war with China. Despite the change in diplomatic recognition, which was forced on them by a vote in the UN General Assembly [virginia.edu], the US still views Taiwan as a protege and would defend them if China attacked, unless they provoked that attack by declaring formal independence.

Re:Nosecones?

[gnuman99]

No, not at war. Also UN does not recognize Taiwan as a nation, but as a "Province of China". And China is too stubborn to let Taiwan go as a separate nation and *threaten* war (invasion) if they do declare independence.

And don't even start with Chinese that "Taiwan is a country" or they'll treat you as enemy of state. But then saying that Quebec is an independent nation from Canada would be similar. Though in Canada a lot of people would just ignore you ;)

Now, if you state that Tibet should be an independent nation since it almost always was, that would be true. But China doesn't listen to history. More nationalistic than US. China annexing Tibet is like Poland annexing its southern and eastern neighbors because in 1600s they were part of Poland. That just wouldn't fly. China and Tibet case is similar.

Re:Nosecones?

[calcapt]

I think you're talking about the PRoC instituting proper industry controls, not the ROC. The difference? The former is China proper (mainland China, communist China) and the latter is Taiwan. While it's obvious China has some issues, made evident by the diethylene glycol laden toothpaste scandal, I'm pretty sure Taiwan has had systems in place for a while now to ensure something doesn't happen to their exported products. http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/site/Tr/fp.asp?xItem=311&CtNode=128 [nat.gov.tw]

The article I just linked shows evidence that Taiwan became aware of consumer confidence in goods in the late 80's, right around the time when it began a move toward formal democracy, and began addressing the issue with the emplacement of quality control measures.

The only problem I see in Taiwan, and this is going to be true in China and other Asian countries as well, is quality control of street vendor goods. In these situations, the vendor could be a small farmer who slaughters his own farm animals and sells them directly to consumers, bypassing whatever quality control measures the government would have in place. Of course, these things wouldn't be exported, and aren't as much of a concern to the rest of the world.

Re:Analog Computers

[treeves]

Even though it was first deployed in 1970, we still maintain operational Minuteman (III) missiles - it is currently our only land-based ICBM. Your comparison is meaningless. There is no smaller "modern" ICBM.