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Cracks in US nuclear command and control
- posnet 6y agoNot the first time, in the last few weeks of Nixon's presidency the secretary of defense orders any presidential order about nuclear arms to be cleared via him or Henry Kissinger. And people need to keep in mind, the nuclear launch system while very efficient is not completely digital or automated. He can give the order, but it still requires military leadership to make a judgement call as whether to follow it. https://time.com/5388648/watergate-nixon-anonymous-op-ed/ https://time.com/5388648/watergate-nixon-anonymous-op-ed/
- k__ 6y agoGood to know. Even if they're legally bound it's good to know that there's still someone in between who can simply say no.
- credit_guy 6y ago> Even if they're legally bound They are not legally bound. They are legally bound to follow a lawful order. It's a personal judgment call what constitutes a lawful order, and in 99.9% of the cases people just follow orders. But when it comes to ending the world, I think all officers, without exception, will realize the order to nuke a random target is not lawful, and will refuse to obey.
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago> But when it comes to ending the world, I think all officers, without exception, will realize the order to nuke a random target is not lawful, and will refuse to obey. Sadly, you’re assuming everyone in the chain are rational actors. This breaks down in a cult
- agsdfagsd 6y agoUS subs are often incommunicado for extended periods of time. If they receive an EAM ordering them to suface and launch immediately, guess what happens.
- credit_guy 6y agoTrump can't just pick up the phone can give a sub commander a direct order to launch the nukes (in particular because the boomers are incommunicado, so he needs to follow a certain protocol). There will be a number of officers on land who will need to relay his orders. And those officers will refuse to do so.
- grayfaced 6y agoIt's not a personal judgment for what is a lawful order. It's only a personal judgment whether you follow an order. Soldiers aren't the legal arbiters. The legal process will determine if it was lawful only after the fact. Society will also judge after the fact. Both have means to punish you for picking wrongly. But the safe bet today is to refuse any unconsciousable order because the next administration likely won't punish for it.
- credit_guy 6y agoYou are absolutely right, of course. What I meant is, as an officer, your assessment whether the order you receive is lawful or not is based on a personal judgment, there is no lookup table you can go and check the legality of the order. In most cases, not obeying an order will result in investigations later on, and the legality will be established by various legal experts.
- craftinator 6y ago> It's not a personal judgment for what is a lawful order. As someone who's refused to follow an order because I believed it wasn't lawful, I disagree with you. The UCMJ provides good general guidance over what constitutes a lawful order, but like any legal document, it doesn't cover specifics or edge cases that crop up. This puts military personnel in hairy areas where they have to know what the UCMJ states on the subject of the order, and make a decision whether or not an order is lawful. I know you followed up with "It's only a personal judgment whether you follow an order. Soldiers aren't the legal arbiters.", but what your statement comes down to is that the person following the order needs to decide on the spot whether it's lawful or not, and sometimes may have to argue their decision in a Military Court. This makes them de facto legal arbiters.
- wortelefant 6y agobut didn't Trump just replace the Secretary of Defense? In the linked story, it was the secretary who implemented the legal safeguards
- bdavis__ 6y agoI would counter that the launch process is inefficient and designed to ensure positive control. Many people have to concur and validate the orders are legitimate. The president doesn't call the sub captain on his iphone. In addition, military officers with this responsibility understand the gravity of the situation; in the ICBM fields they have access to the media. Launch when everything in the world is peaceful? Nope. They would question it.
- bra-ket 6y agoThe libs are sh*ting their pants for real now.
- saboot 6y agoWho is a "lib"? Anyone concerned one person can end the Earth?
- bra-ket 6y agono, it's about mass hysteria in liberal circles, lmao.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ChrisClark 6y agoThe pure and utter mind control Trump has over people like the OP there is outright scary. How did it get so far that it is so obvious to everyone but themselves?
- bra-ket 6y agoTrump had nothing to do with it, it was you, dear liberals, who radicalized the entire country.
- a3n 6y agoWorldwide verification of the elimination of nuclear weapons is the minimal necessary metric to predict that our civilization will survive. Besides eliminating their immediate danger, it's a proxy for our ability to cooperate as a world and think past our differences.
- travisjungroth 6y agoOne of the things scary to me about nukes for human survival is I think it gains limited resiliency from being interplanetary, at least at first. The same countries on Earth will set up nukes on Mars and point them at each other. Other threats (asteroid impact, virus) get more of a boost. Put more generally, I don’t think the nuclear threat is something we’ll tech our way out of.
- whatshisface 6y agoOne country teching its way out of nukes before everyone else would be the most dangerous thing ever.
- travisjungroth 6y agoYeah, that’s even worse. A perfect missile shield seems like it would save lives, but could negate MAD.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoMAD is funny this way. Not only you have to keep up with your enemy - you have to stay in lock-step with them. Go ahead too fast - in offensive or defensive capabilities - and you're just provoking a preemptive strike. A better missile, or a better missile shield, or a better submarine detection technology - all can trigger the end if developed deployed too quickly. It's already beneficial to be open about what you can do; I wonder if we reach the point at which it will be beneficial for the country that's ahead to just give others its tech, to keep the parity going. As for other planets, I suspect the early colonies will be completely defenseless from Earth, but if they reach sufficient level of development and self-governance, they'll want to rapidly develop capability of hurting Earth as an opening move for declaring independence.
- sanxiyn 6y agoIt is about time US pledges no first use of nuclear weapons. China already did.
- travisjungroth 6y agoHow seriously can we take this pledge? It seems like nuking someone first is already an all-out move and pledges will be ignored.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoAbout as seriously as anything in geopolitics - i.e. not at all, unless enforced by a credible threat from other countries. But it's a nice, zero-cost gesture.
- sanxiyn 6y agoIt's a nice, zero-cost gesture US is unwilling to make.
- dirtyid 6y agoThey have (estimated) 1/10 the nuclear stockpile and limited delivery vehicles, it's mostly credible as second strike. That said, the launch hardware and command structure is mixed with the conventional rocket force so any conventional attack on Chinese rocketry is indistinguishable from first strike since no one can be certain whether attack is on conventional or nuclear assets. This ambiguity is by design. Doubt is when China moves towards nuclear parity.
- brighton36 6y agoThat pledge is as good as toilet paper. Don't be so naive. (And that's not because they're chinese. All governments would immediately disregard such pledges at the time it was deemed necessary to strike first)
- garyfirestorm 6y agoFact remains they have never deployed them. I am no fan of China, but Hey at least they say they won’t deploy as opposed to certain other countries (for eg. India’s immediate neighbor)
- whynotminot 6y agoIn my mind, a nuclear first strike without Congress is definitely illegal because President's cannot declare war--only Congress can. Presidents for a long time have engaged in limited quasi-wars without Congress by hand-waving over "what is war, anyway," conducting missile strikes and engaging in targeted special operations. Congress looking the other way is a clear abdication of responsibility here, but there has been enough plausible grey area to get away with this over many recent decades of American foreign policy. But I don't know any serious person who would look at a nuclear first strike and think there's any debate about whether or not that constituted an outright declaration of war. We definitely need to make this more explicit though, and not rely on out of control President to test it.
- adaisadais 6y agoHerein lies the issue: the quasi-war. The US must make actions in the future to more accurately describe what a war is. In my mind virtually every “quasi-war” that the United States has waged since WWII has been waged unconstitutionally. We’ve gone about for too long meddling in the affairs of others. Putting boots on their grounds and haven’t the slightest bit of gall to make it official and firmly support it. These acts of ill will (however good intentioned they may have been- and most have not *see War in Vietnam) have been nothing but racketeering and have violated our own Constitution. I agree. We must clarify and make it more explicit. We must also create a nuclear armistice. We can’t continue to go on kicking the little countries and idealogies of the world and not expect the Big Ones to at some point decide to kick back. “ Don't you understand, what I'm trying to say? Can't you see the fears that I'm feeling today? If the button is pushed, there's no running away There'll be no one to save with the world in a grave” From Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction”
- whatshisface 6y agoLet's say that country P's intelligence agency is implicated in helping a terrorist group based in country Q obtain a weapon from the leaky security of country R, which is then detonated in country S but with a smaller yield than expected due to deterioration in R's stockpile maintenance, so that most of the damage is the cost of the radioactive cleanup. Act of war?
- misiti3780 6y agoIf anyone is interesting in more details, I really recommend the recent book "The Button" about how precarious the situation really is: https://www.amazon.com/Button-Book-Sally-Nicholls/dp/0735267154 https://www.amazon.com/Button-Book-Sally-Nicholls/dp/0735267...
- TigeriusKirk 6y agoAnother similar book is Command And Control by Eric Schlosser. It goes into a lot of detail about how nuclear weapons and their control systems evolved. Covers a number of accidents and near apocalypses along the way. One of my favorite books of the last decade, informative and very readable at the same time. https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/0143125788 https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill...
- iab 6y agoAmazing book, although terrifying. In a similar vein is "The Doomsday Machine", Daniel Ellsberg. Reading this in conjunction with C&C will truly make you appreciate the insane run of luck we have had as a species in avoiding nuclear catastrophe (so far).
- iab 6y agoJust came across this as well on today's fp: https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-timeline/ https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-ti...
- FabHK 6y agoI think you meant https://www.amazon.com/Button-Nuclear-Presidential-Power-Truman-ebook/dp/B07ZKVTXX1/ https://www.amazon.com/Button-Nuclear-Presidential-Power-Tru... (what you linked to is a "silly and sweet picture book [which] introduces young children to colors through humor and clever interactive elements.")
- misiti3780 6y agoyes i did, thanks!
- aphextron 6y agoI wonder who could possibly benefit from this. We're seeing Russia's ultimate geopolitical goals playing out like clockwork here; the destabilization of the US and disarming of their major nuclear threat. It's terrifying how brazen and obvious Putin's strategy is here while going off without a hitch.
- oaiey 6y agoNo one, especially Russia is interested in a nuclear war. Disarmed okay, but for what? Nuking a size of the US or Russia is ending the world, even without nuclear subs or allies striking back. That Russia plays the US right now like a fiddle: hell yes. Disarming the nuclear weapons: not important. It is at best distraction. Actually, I am pretty sure, in that regards they would prefer more stability. Putin plays the MAD game already longer than any other ruler currently in control of nuclear warheads.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago> House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to members on Friday that she's spoken to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley about preventing President Trump from accessing the nuclear codes. If Miley does it, wouldn’t it be a military coup, and isn’t Nancy Pelosi encouraging it? All the existing US law both statute and Constitutional is that the president is Commander in Chief of the US military and has sole authority to launch nukes. Congress can impeach, but I am not sure I am happy with a precedent of political leaders going to the military and telling them to abrogate the constitutional authority that their political opponent has. There are already other Constituional remedies such as impeachment or the 25th Amendment to deal with a rogue President. Telling the military to unilaterally assume authority in a matter is not one of them. The military should Never be brought into any political dispute. That path only escalates and leads to ruin.
- jaycroft 6y agoWhere, in the constitution, is the President authorized to wage war without the consent of Congress?
- gwright 6y agoTo my mind, this effort by Pelosi (if true) is more dangerous than anything Trump said this week.
- charonn0 6y agoReally? Advocating the violent overthrow of Congress and the rule of law by a sitting president is less worrisome than trying to prevent that same sitting president from murdering tens of millions of innocent people in your name?
- gwright 6y agoGive me the quote that justifies your statement that Trump was "Advocating the violent overthrow of Congress and the rule of law"
- atemerev 6y agoHere I can actually put my two cents in the discussion, as somebody who studied nuclear C&C for years. Technically, everything there is correct: the unilateral authority for nuclear weapons use is in the hands of the president. In particular, the military are absolutely not allowed to do anything with nuclear weapons without the confirmation of the president. This system was put in place by Truman, and this decision probably saved the planet from nuclear war many times. Now, in practice, the president, Trump or anybody else, cannot unilaterally start the nuclear war. He has to communicate with the military to activate the nuclear football and call NMCC. The order will be handled by EAC (emergency actions controller), who has to input their own codes, which needs to be confirmed by the superior officer. Choosing the nuclear option beyond what is already in nuclear football (where only retaliatory options are placed, not applicable in the first-use context) will require active input from STRATCOM, which will take hours. At all these points, there are many opportunities to intervene and/or seek additional confirmations from multiple authorities. Tl;dr the nuclear _retaliation_ can indeed be launched by the president in minutes, if it is already proposed by the military and the only thing the president needs to to is to reply with nuclear launch codes from the biscuit and the football. Initiating a first use attack is a whole another story, will take hours, and most probably will not succeed at all. P.S. Mark Milley is not in the nuclear launch command chain, so he has no authority to do anything about the procedure. Neither is Nancy Pelosi.
- dillondoyle 6y agoThis is great insight. Do you know what role political appointees play in the decision tree? e.g. NSC, Esper, the Republican theory of unitary executive
- howmayiannoyyou 6y agoTo which I might add that the POTUS who removed most troops f/ Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq; and who held off on retaliation for Iran's shelling of US bases in Iraq -- would appear to be a very low risk candidate for starting a nuclear holocaust. So, we might ask ourselves why this narrative is being pushed as POTUS and many conservatives are being purged from social media. Its almost as if there's something else taking place.
- baybal2 6y agoDo you guys understand that retaliatory use of nuclear weapons is very likely assured even if president says no? People in underground command bunkers likely have families too, and will act like most normal people.
- FabHK 6y agoAnd normal people would, if they realise that their family and countrymen are doomed, say, "ok, let's obliterate all those hundreds of million of other people, too!"?
- dillondoyle 6y agoI think it's time to distribute (what's the proper word here?) first-strike power - what I'm trying to say is make it a vote with at least 2/3rds majority from a diverse group. Importantly as we've seen with Trump/Republican rule it should not be game-able with just executive power (many times non-confirmed) political appointees. I don't like writing two party rule into law (FEC as an example) but I'm not sure a better solution even adding judiciary is partisan control these days. Even NSC has been gutted and politicized by Trump. It's harder to confirm a low level judge or actually confirm a cabinet level staff member in Trump's admin than it is to launch an all out unprovoked nuclear assault.
- pluc 6y agoI cannot believe that if a deranged sitting President would task the Army (or whatever branch) with bombing a random country, the safeguards in place wouldn't be common fucking sense in all those involved.
- altcognito 6y agoSo, while I agree, the chain of command thing is there for good reason, and it is supposed to be the case that you would just remove a leader so unpredictable you can’t trust him with the most critical tasks we have.
- trasz 6y agoDidn’t prevent USA wars in the past, why would it be different this time?
- jeffbee 6y agoMaybe not a random country, but I would give even odds that if Trump ordered an air strike against San Francisco they'd do it.
- lambda_obrien 6y agoYou would lose everytime, military officers aren't bloodthirsty villans.
- jeffbee 6y agoLike the retired Air Force colonel who was looting the Capitol earlier week? The one with the nylon restraints because he was planning to abduct the legislative branch?
- lambda_obrien 6y agoSure, there are a few bad apples in every bunch, but they're not gonna fucking bomb an American city. I'm not arguing with you, just trying to anchor you to reality.
- thysultan 6y agoCan an adversary launch a a first attack, given the latency this introduces? can an adversary await for a solar flare to disturb comms to launch?
- jeffbee 6y agoWhy would an adversary need to nuke us when it has been demonstrated that one merely walks into buildings in Washington armed with sticks?