The millennium bug is a potential mischief-maker in that it may lead to unpredictable failures of systems and cause ambiguous or confusing data to be generated. When it comes to nuclear weapon systems, two separate areas of concern can be delineated-maintaining force readiness and ensuring safety. Force readiness may be impaired by systems that cause automatic shutdown. Pals would respond by disabling the warhead. Problems with guidance sets could lead to targeting inaccuracies, as could the breakdown of satellites that send targeting data to missiles in mid-flight.
Outside analysts are much more worried about a breach in nuclear safety.
However, there are other, more realistic worst-case scenarios. The ability of the United States to monitor Russian activities is based on a highly interdependent conglomeration of radar arrays, satellites, communications networks, and data processing stations. It is difficult to evaluate how well that process is going. Another safety-related problem is the increase in simple human error that is likely to occur when computers malfunction. If systems behave peculiarly, people will be nervous, overworked, and stop trusting the system.