[Dan Day]

From a very reliable source, which I will not divulge, I was told this two days ago; the Russians claim they "misplaced" 5 nuclear warheads that were being transferred to subs, and as such they are now unaccounted for.

Russian nuclear weapons, like American ones, have coded interlocks that prevent their detonation by a crazed individual within the Russian military itself, much less anyone who might steal one.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Russian nuclear weapons, like American ones, have coded interlocks that prevent their detonation by a crazed individual within the Russian military itself, much less anyone who might steal one

BUT, anyone who manages to spirit away such a bomb would presumably be able to partially dismantle it and hack into the code system at leisure... the bomb code is only meant to prevent the bomb being exploded while it remains in situ.

[LibertyGirl77]

But the problem isn't the bomb itself--the problem is the raw materials inside of it. Hussein and Bin Laden both know how to produce the bomb but lack the materials to do it. Couldn't they get to the raw materials without a password?

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Russian nuclear weapons, like American ones, have coded interlocks that prevent their detonation by a crazed individual within the Russian military itself, much less anyone who might steal one.

Which means that a middle-eastern guy who came over to the US on a student visa and earned a grad degree in electrical engineering is going to have to disassemble the control mechanisms and design, assemble, and install new ones. This might take a few weeks, a few months at the most.

The only value of the coded interlocks is to prevent their IMMEDIATE unauthorized detonation.