During a meeting with congressmen, the president reportedly said, “I can go in my office and pick up a telephone, and in 25 minutes, millions of people will be dead” – which prompted a prominent senator to warn the defense secretary of “the need for keeping a berserk president from plunging us into a holocaust.”

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You would be forgiven for believing that statement was made in Trump's White House – a scenario which is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.  But these words were actually spoken by President Richard Nixon.  In the final days of his presidency, Nixon was depressed.  He was drinking to the point where Defense Secretary James Schlesinger told military commanders that, if President Nixon ordered a nuclear launch, they should confirm the orders with either him or Secretary of State Henry Kissinger before acting on them.

 

The Nuclear Weapons Personnel Reliability Assurance outlines significant precautions to ensure that the personnel who handle nuclear weapons are physically and mentally prepared to handle the job, and these men and women are held to the highest standards of readiness.  This applies to personnel in the entire chain of command – from those in charge of missile silos to those who handle nuclear bombs in transit to those who give the orders in between. The Department of Defense directive 5210.42 states:  "Nuclear weapons personnel reliability assurance is a critical link in nuclear surety. Screening, personnel security investigations, and continuing evaluation are designed to mitigate risks and protect the nuclear deterrent from insider threats...(personnel must) have good social adjustment, emotional stability, personal integrity, sound judgment, and allegiance to the United States."  Read the entire document here.  However, the commander-in-chief is the only person in the chain of command who is not subject to these guidelines – which makes zero sense because s(he) is the only person who can actually order a nuclear strike in the first place.  

 

The lack of clarity on the president's authority to order a nuclear strike is chilling.  There are even several interpretations of the process, which in and of itself could lead to disaster. 

 

In 2017, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command, retired Air Force General Robert Kehler, told the Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. armed forces are obligated to follow legal orders, not illegal ones.  But very few dispute the fact that, if a president orders a nuclear launch that is deemed to be legal, no one can stop it.  

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Bruce G. Blair, a former nuclear missile launch officer, says that "if President Trump were to decide that it's time to put Kim Jong Un in his place once and for all, he would choose a plan that already exists.  And it would be almost impossible in my view to override a decision to implement that option."  He then outlined the process to launch a nuclear strike:  the president consults with his advisers; they explain his available options, and the Strategic Command chief located near Omaha, Nebraska gives a recommendation; the president chooses an option and orders the Pentagon war room to implement it; the Pentagon war room asks the president to authenticate the order using a code, the  "biscuit;" the war room formats and transmits a launch order that is the length of a tweet directly to executing commanders in submarines, to those overseeing land-based rocket missiles in the mid-Western U.S. and to bomber forces; the launch order is checked for its authenticity by commanders using special codes that they already possess; the launch orders are transmitted to all commanders around the world simultaneously; if the codes are authenticated, the land-based weapons are fired within a minute or two and within 15 minutes for submarines.

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This is terrifying.  We must require congressional approval for a nuclear first strike.  Period.  End of Story.

 

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Evidence:

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Garrett M. Graff.  "The Madman and the Bomb."  Politico.  11 Aug 2017

United States.  Department of Defense.  "DoD Nuclear Weapons Personnel Reliability Assurance."  DoD Instructions 5210.42.  31 Aug 2018 

Robert Burns and Richard Lardner.  "Retired US General Says Nuclear Launch Order Can Be Refused."  Associated Press.  14 Nov 2017

Kim Hjelmgaard.  "No One Can Prevent Trump From Using Nuclear Weapons, Experts Say."  USA Today. 19 Nov 2017

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