It could be prudent to change these protocols before the next election, to avoid another situation like this:
’President Trump took the nuclear football with him to Walter Reed Medical Center, where he received treatment for COVID-19. According to Trump’s doctor, the president’s blood oxygen levels had dipped. And this, according to independent health experts, can impair decision-making ability. He is taking dexamethasone, which can cause mood swings and “frank psychotic manifestations.” Yet as far as we know, at no point did the president transfer his powers to the vice president, as allowed under the 25th Amendment.’
’To state the obvious, we should not entrust nuclear launch authority to someone who is not fully lucid. (Reagan transferred authority temporarily before planned surgery, as did President George W. Bush before a medical procedure that required his sedation.) A nuclear crisis can happen at any time, including at the worst possible time. If such a crisis takes place when a president’s thinking is compromised for any reason, the results could be catastrophic.’
The hospital stuff was the least of our concerns.[3]
The history of this actually gets better. Nixon was sloshed half the time and then rolled that fact into the furtherance of his nuclear brinksmanship[2] pioneering:
"If the president had his way," Kissinger growled to aides more than once, "there would be a nuclear war each week!" This may not have been an idle jest. The CIA's top Vietnam specialist, George Carver, reportedly said that in 1969, when the North Koreans shot down a US spy plane, "Nixon became incensed and ordered a tactical nuclear strike... The Joint Chiefs were alerted and asked to recommend targets, but Kissinger got on the phone to them. They agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning." [1]
No big deal.
"The allegation of flirting with nuclear weaponry is not an isolated one. Nixon had been open to the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam as early as 1954 and as president-elect in 1968 had talked of striking "a blow that would both end the war and win it". A Kissinger aide who moved over to the White House, David Young, told a colleague "of the time he was on the phone [listening] when Nixon and Kissinger were talking. Nixon was drunk, and he said, 'Henry, we've got to nuke them.'"[1]
Now we know where a certain warmonger gets their habit of threatening the use of tactical nukes.
I think the best system is probably some type of consensus system between military command elements. We have a fleet of EC-4 "Nightwatch" aircraft for this purpose, as a backup. It makes more sense to have your nuclear war decision makers comfortably aloft with the job being their primary vocation, as opposed to some dude waking up groggy at 3am being told they have 15 minutes to live while probably also being evacuated at the same time.
Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenzo once said about war?
Mandrake: No. I don't think I do sir, no.
Ripper: He said war was to important to be left to the Generals. When he said that, fifty years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought.
> at no point did the president transfer his powers to the vice president
Well of course he wouldn't transfer power to his VP; in about 4 months after this event he would unleash a mob aimed at murdering his VP. I take the above quote as "don't give lunatics the Presidency". As you mentioned, other past Presidents have taken the duties of the office seriously. Trump has not nor will not.
If Trump loses and RFK Jr isn't given a chance, we'll still be left with a president likely incapable of making nuclear strike decisions in 6 minutes at a moment's notice.
Biden's cognitive ability gets wildly exaggerated, but I think its totally reasonable to assume he isn't always 100% prepared for such a decision and 4 more years would just make that harder.
I honestly don't know how anyone makes such a decision with limited knowledge in the moment and 6 minutes to act, so it's not like the problem is only related to age or medical concerns.
There is very little risk of anyone launching a major nuclear attack onto the US. The US would always be able to retaliate against such a strike. I would be more concerned about Trump doing something silly, either launching a nuclear strike or provoking a situation in which nuclear weapons might get used.
It doesn't actually require another country launching first. The US system has a matter of minutes from the first automated detection of launch, to a secondary confirmation, and presenting options to the president. Its also our policy to return fire before absorbing an impact, meaning we don't wait to confirm a nuclear strike was on our soil.
Granted its still a really unlikely scenario, but we only need to detect what appears to be a nuke with a trajectory that could be pointed at a US target.
Regardless, while Trump may seem a bit crazy and I'd personally write in a vote for Empty Chair before picking him, I don't really feel comfortable with anyone having exclusive power to launch nukes.
Here's the thing. If launch detection and land based ICBMs make mutually assured destruction a credible deterent, then the decision time is short: upthread, 6 minutes was posted.
Coming to consensus in 6 minutes with a committee sounds pretty hard. It kind of does need to be one person, or you need more time.
OTOH, even though it's one person with authority, you've still got to convince a lot of people to act. You've got to get the person with the football to bring it over and open it up. And it's not a button to push to launch the missiles, it's a radio to reach the Strategic Air Command, to give a command to launch the missiles, that will need to be disseminated.
When the Commander in Chief gives a command, you're expected to carry it out, but there's an opportunity to object or disobey. And then there's the people who actually push the buttons.
I really so understand logically why they got to the solution of a single person to make the decision, but play that out. When mutually assured destruction ultimately fails, and it inevitably will, what happens.
The US detects a launch that appears to be aimed at their soil, the president picks from a menu of response options and launches. Do they launch to warn the enemy and create an opening for escalation? Do they launch for complete annihilation? And remember, that can all be triggered by a false positive that was never a launch targeting the US.
Mutually assured destruction kind of made sense with two nuclear powers, maybe can hold with a few more, but it simply doesn't scale. Even with a short list, eventually someone will launch. We won't see those weapons and anything worse to come go completely unused forever.
> When the Commander in Chief gives a command, you're expected to carry it out, but there's an opportunity to object or disobey. And then there's the people who actually push the buttons.
Anyone of sound mind and health can still make a bad decision in the moment. I'd argue ever launching nukes is a bad decision, at which point we might as well disconnect the football and just not tell anyone.
https://thebulletin.org/2020/10/trumps-covid-infection-shows...
It could be prudent to change these protocols before the next election, to avoid another situation like this:
’President Trump took the nuclear football with him to Walter Reed Medical Center, where he received treatment for COVID-19. According to Trump’s doctor, the president’s blood oxygen levels had dipped. And this, according to independent health experts, can impair decision-making ability. He is taking dexamethasone, which can cause mood swings and “frank psychotic manifestations.” Yet as far as we know, at no point did the president transfer his powers to the vice president, as allowed under the 25th Amendment.’
’To state the obvious, we should not entrust nuclear launch authority to someone who is not fully lucid. (Reagan transferred authority temporarily before planned surgery, as did President George W. Bush before a medical procedure that required his sedation.) A nuclear crisis can happen at any time, including at the worst possible time. If such a crisis takes place when a president’s thinking is compromised for any reason, the results could be catastrophic.’