Year 2000 Problem and Nuclear Weapons Apocalypse or Annoyance

Year 2000 Problem and Nuclear Weapons: Apocalypse or Annoyance? The inherent and unavoidable unreliability of computers is about to be stressed, to some unknown and unknowable extent, by a seemingly trivial "feature"--the Year 2000 (Y2K) problem. Systems and application programs that use dates to perform calculations, comparisons, or sorting may generate incorrect results working with years after 1999. A Two Digit Problem The problem arises from the use of two digits to represent year data in …showed first 75 words of 3722 total…

…showed last 75 words of 3722 total…that could, in any case, be changed by the Russians quickly in a crisis. On May 12, for the third time, President Yeltsin referred to the possibility of going far below 2,000 warheads by asserting that START III could see "even deeper cuts--of two or three times" beyond START II's limits of 3,000 to 3,500. We should be willing to go as low as the Russians will. And if it requires changing the current guidance, so much the better.