Posted on 08/13/2017 12:49:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In just five minutes an American president could put all of humanity in jeopardy. Most nuclear security experts believe that's how long it would take for as many as 400 land-based nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal to be loosed on enemy targets after an initial “go” order. Ten minutes later a battalion of underwater nukes could join them.
That unbridled power is a frightening prospect no matter who is president. Donald Trump, the current occupant of the Oval Office, highlights this point. He said he aspires to be “unpredictable” in how he might use nuclear weapons. There is no way to recall these missiles when they have launched, and there is no self-destruct switch. The act would likely set off a lethal cascade of retaliatory attacks, which is why strategists call this scenario mutually assured destruction.
With the exception of the president, every link in the U.S. nuclear decision chain has protections against poor judgments, deliberate misuse or accidental deployment. The “two-person rule,” in place since World War II, requires that the actual order to launch be sent to two separate people. Each one has to decode and authenticate the message before taking action. In addition, anyone with nuclear weapons duties, in any branch of service, must routinely pass a Pentagon-mandated evaluation called the Personnel Reliability Program—a battery of tests that assess several areas, including mental fitness, financial history, and physical and emotional well-being.
There is no comparable restraint on the president. He or she can decide to trigger a thermonuclear Armageddon without consulting anyone at all and never has to demonstrate mental fitness. This must change. We need to ensure at least some deliberation before the chief executive can act. And there are ways to do this without weakening our military responses or national security.
This is not just a reaction to current politics. Calls for a bulwark against unilateral action go back more than 30 years. During the Reagan administration, the late Jeremy Stone, then president of the Federation of American Scientists, proposed that the president should not be able to order a first nuclear strike without consulting with high-ranking members of Congress. Such a buffer would ensure that actions that could escalate into world-destroying counterattacks would not be taken lightly. Democratic legislators recently introduced a law that would require not just consultation but congressional support for a preemptive nuclear attack. Whether or not that seems like the best check on presidential nuclear power is a matter for Congress.
We already know that second-check plans would not compromise American safety. Security experts used to worry that a hair-trigger launch was needed to deter a first strike by an enemy: our instant reactions would ensure that our opponent would feel catastrophic consequences of aggression. In the modern world, that is no longer the case. The U.S. has enough nukes in enough locations—including, crucially, our roving, nuclear-armed submarines—that nuclear strategists now agree it would not be possible to take out all of the nation's weapons with a first strike. The Pentagon, in a 2012 security assessment, said the same thing. It noted that even in the unlikely event that Russia launched a preemptive attack on the U.S.—and had more nuclear capability than current international agreements allow for—it “would have little to no effect on the U.S. assured second-strike capabilities.” That conclusion suggests that we will have ample firepower even if two or more people discuss how to use it.
We have come close to nuclear war in the past because of misidentified threats, including an incident in 1979 in which computers at a military command center in Colorado Springs wrongly reported the start of a major Soviet nuclear offensive. Ballistic and nuclear bomber crews immediately sprang into action. Crisis was averted only after satellite data could not corroborate the warning, and American forces finally stood down. In our March issue, Scientific American called for taking the U.S. nuclear arsenal off high alert because of this and other such near misses.
Taking the arsenal off high alert is an important step. But putting another check into the system—removing one person's unfettered ability to destroy the world—will create another essential, lasting safeguard for the U.S. and the planet.
Not science. They should leave this alone and STHU.
Quit reading popular science and nat geo when they began social engineering also.
They publish without proof. reading.
“Sorry, but entire article is BS. POTUS cannot launch on his own. SECDEF, SECSTATE, AG or others at that level must “confirm” order.”
Exactly!! Thus the “National Command Authority” is the source of nuclear release orders to the force, not from the President alone.
We elected him for this reason. No more bullsh*p. You twitch and you are toast.
The ignorance of this statement is staggering. Nuclear command and control is complex and robust. The President can do nothing by himself except throw a temper tantrum and smash whatever crockery is at hand. Yes he can use codes to authorize a strike, but the admirals and generals on watch in the nuclear command and control system must execute the orders, and on a quiet sunny sunday afternoon with not much going on they might come back with, Mr. President, is Barron playing with the football again?
Ding, ding, ding - we have a thread winnah!
To speed things up, maybe they could use the emergency "Declaration of War: The Short Form"? /"Buckaroo Banzai"
But Hilary with PMS would be alright
Yeah, right. What difference does it make? They'll only cook or make up the numbers to support their insane theories.
Scientific American.
Neither Scientific, nor American.
Discuss.
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Plus: No one man can actually launch a nuclear attack. It is not like the President actually has a button that makes the missiles go, and the bombs to fall out of the planes.
My mother was a librarian at National Bureau of Standards in Boulder Colorado and SA was one of the magazines I would read. In the 80s I subscribed to their magazine and it was was so political it became hard and disappointing to read like Mother earth news use to have articles about how to live and grow food or make money on a small acreage and homesteading. both became POS diatribe riddled man is destroying the planet rags.
Didn’t Clinton lose the “football” for months?
Ah, yes, we need The Committee to control it... and us.
I disagree...a good nuke launch will thin out the herd, Lord knows we need it as to many are living longer than they really should.
SA needs to direct this concern toward the fat boy in North Korea. That’s were the real threat resides. Also do some thinking about limiting the mad mullahs in Iran as they will have the bomb shortly. Trump may be impulsive but not to this degree.
Total bullsh*t article. The National Command Authority is not a singularity of the President. President Eisenhower was a smart man and new that giving a single nutcase such power would be disastrous.
Launch authority and the sequence of events is classified, but it ain’t just the president.
Global Warming is much more of an issue, Denier!
Russia has an automated doomsday launch system in case a button pusher gets cold feet.
Leftards ate okay with that.
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