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.
“scientific” American is a leftist rag. They used to have some integrity. They are anti-science political hacks.
No Nukes was a lie. They didn’t protest NorK and Iran becoming nuclear powers or using nuclear energy.
I doubt that Hillary at age 69 would have PMS.
But Parkinson's Disease dementia, quite likely.
Most of these idiots think norkie nukes are the size seen in movies.
That’s what I thought. Thanks.
Do they mean Kim Jong Un?
Maybe they should stick with global warming.........
Then, of course, there was a Kenyan fraud who everybody pretended was eligible to be President for eight long years who also had access to these launch codes and Armageddon. For some reason, he didn't launch the nucs, either.
I feel much safer with President Trump holding our hole cards.
Just out of curiosity, are the editors of this rag, scientists themselves? If yes, who knew that scientists were such stupid individuals?
Let’s change the title of the publication to “Scientific No-Nothing.
First let’s dispute their claim that their article is not a mere political ploy. They made no such report during the Obama administration.
They know nothing because they know not that the President cannot by themselves deliver a nuclear launch command.
It must be confirmed by the Secretary of Defense. And a president cannot order the Secretary of Defense approve the decision, they can only fire a Secretary of Defense who won’t approve it and, within the situation for which the command was issued, hope a new Secretary of Defense is confirmed quickly and will agree to the command. Meanwhile, the nuclear launch command does not reach the nuclear armed forces.
On the general issue of the most important powers of the chief executive, and particularly the powers as the Commander In Chief, the founders debated in earnest what kind of chief executive was best.
The editors of Scientific No-Nothing apparently never read the founders debates on the chief executive and why they came down in the end against a collective chief executive or the commander in chief powers delimited by a committee. I won’t repeat that debate for benefit of Scientific No-Nothing. Let’s just understand they are ignorant.
The two man rule ensures that the SECDEF verify the Presidential launch order.
Contrary to this moronic article, the 1979 computer chip episode did not nearly put us in a war with the soviets. In my mind, the closest we came to nuclear war was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. A somewhat close second is the 1983 Soviet reaction to NATO’s Able Archer exercise.That would have been a far deadlier attack than what would have occurred in 1962. By 1983, the Soviets had thousands of strategic and tactical warheads at their disposal.
I wonder if the writer of this smut piece had recently watched the famous scene from the “Dead Zone” where an insane President Greg Stillson orders a nuclear attack from his lair.
The 1979 event was called down almost immediately, the July 1980 event was also called down very quickly and neither got close to release of any weapons. I was a missileer keyturner on alert both times.
I have subscribed to Scientific American since 1964, but in recent years they have gone too far in the direction of Lysenko science and political propaganda.
They have no earthly idea how the NCA and Nuclear release is accomplished nor the layers of safeguards built in. It is not the sole decision of the president; there is no button.
They were fine with it before and now they can’t stand it?
Inconvenient lies
Someone needs to put the Rip Van Winkle left back to sleep. Liberal opinions sound like they come from someone who woke up in the middle of a movie and wonder whats going on.
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The writer of this article is massively ignorant!
No nukes are needed to destroy the Norks nukes.
We have beam weapons in orbit that can fry the brains of Kim’s ICBMs.
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Read Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence. Schelling was the preeminent RAND corp. thinker on deterrence, and eventually was awarded the Nobel Prize for his cogent, comprehensive thinking. Unpredictability, incalculability, according to Schelling are key components of deterrence. Drawing red lines, signaling when you will not retaliate, is exactly what you don't do.
Right, we should wait until Congress convenes and comes to a consensus. Except one little problem, by then we would all have disappeared.
Exactly. Not a peep. Hypocrites.
No, they are not. SA is a commercial publication, not a scientific journal, and the content, editing, style, pictures, etc. are chosen to satisfy a commercial market. A professional scientist can amaze himself with how little he can learn by reading a SA article.
But that does not matter. You would be astonished how incurious, obstinately ignorant, and ill-informed many scientists are on this subject.
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