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Subject: Security of Nuclear Facilities
Roman    6/18/2007 8:56:31 AM
When a country builds a deterrent, it also needs to provide for effective security for the requisite nuclear facilities. The storage sites of warheads must be protected, as must the ports where submarines berth and the docks where they are maintained and refurbished. Communications centers/equipment, command centers, nuclear labs, nuclear production facilities and so on all must be protected from intrusions, sabotage, infiltration and conventional attack. How is such protection organized and how much effort (money and personnel) does it require?
 
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murabit821       6/18/2007 2:48:34 PM
here is some inof about RVSN regiment

A rocket regiment may have from one to ten launchers, depending on the type of rocket with which it is equipped. A strategic rocket regiment is the smallest in size of any in the Soviet Army. Its fighting strength is between 250 and 400 men, depending on the type of rocket with which it is equipped. Its basic tasks are to maintain the rockets, to safeguard and defend them and to launch them. Organisationally, a rocket regiment consists of the commander, his staff, five duty launch teams, an emergency repair battery and a guard company. This sub-unit is dignified with the title of regiment solely because of the very great responsibility which its officers bear. Each regiment has an underground command post in which there is always a duty team of officers with direct communication links with the divisional commander, the Army commander, the commander-in-chief of the SRF and the Central command post. If this underground post goes out of action, the commander of the regiment immediately deploys a mobile control point working from motor vehicles. In a threatening situation two teams are on duty simultaneously--one in the underground command post and the other at a mobile one--so that either could take over the firing of all the regiment's rockets. According to the situation, the duty teams at command posts are changed either every week or every month. If a launcher is damaged, it is dismantled by the regiment's emergency repair battery. The guard company is responsible for the protection of the command posts and of the launchers. A large proportion of the regiment's personnel are involved in guard duties. Not one of them will have seen a rocket or know anything about one. Their job is to guard snow-covered clearings in pine forests, clearings which are surrounded by dozens of rows of barbed wire and defended by minefields. The guard company of a rocket regiment has fifty or so guard dogs.

 
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Roman       6/24/2007 5:05:56 PM
Thank you murabit, that is certainly interesting. How does protection for other nuclear assets stack up - command and control as well as other infrastructure also need to be protected.
 
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TrustButVerify       7/17/2007 11:45:32 AM
For a U.S. base, there's an official staff in charge of nuclear safety. (O-6 annual pay.) Security forces/MPs/etc. will be needed to guard the weapons storage area (WSA) and any alert forces; about 700 security police are assigned to a missile wing. Roughly half will be enlisted, and their pay will run somewhere in the neighborhood of $15,000,000. A handful of officers (arbitrarily, I'd say 20, averaging O-4) would be an additional $2M. The remainder would be NCOs of various stripes, which would average another $20M per year. Security forces, therefore, are in the neighborhood of $37 million in personnel costs alone, to say nothing of the costs of running their armories, transportation, and the logistical tail. These costs are considerable and I'll guess them at 7.5 million annually for a missile wing.
So, direct costs of security forces for an missile wing and attached WSA could be 44.5 million dollars.

Each WSA and missile site has intrusion detection equipment. This will require a shop manned by about 10 people (Perhaps 6 airmen and 4 NCOs) costing around $500k in yearly pay and benefits. Operating the shop- spare parts, test equipment, vehicles and logistics- is another cost, and while varying from year to year is probably another hundred thousand.
Security infrastructure, therefore, could be around $600,000 not counting the initial installation and setup costs.

Air defense of the sites is free, courtesy of existing assets already in place for the air defense of the CONUS or host nation. At present there aren't any SAM or air defense sites protecting nuclear assets. Twenty years ago, NATO weapons sat behind thick belts of Hawk and Patriot SAMs, but again, these were there anyway for general air defense.

There are also quality assurance and nuclear surety assurance functions to make sure this stuff keeps running. These functions exist independently of a given facility, as they're often carried out by higher command levels. A staff of 20 officers (averaging O-5) and 30 NCOs (averaging E-5) could provide this function for a number of bases, going by the USAF model of visiting inspection teams. Pay and benefits would be roughly $3.9M, and operation expenses would probably add at least another hundred thousand.
Inspection and QA staff, 4 million dollars annually.

So far we're running at $50,000,000 per year. I am ignoring the indirect support organizations operating at any military base (chow halls, living quarters, medical care, personnel and finance administration, logistics and transportation, the list goes on) because it's a given for any base, nuclear or otherwise, and would be extraordinarily difficult to calculate.

Therefore, my estimate for a major U.S. installation is $50 million per year in direct security costs. This would go down a little for bomber and submarine bases, and down a lot for bases which simply store warheads.
 
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