IS IT TIME THAT LAWMAKERS TOOK BACK SOME NUCLEAR POWER FROM THE PRESIDENT?

…The first atomic bomb called “The Fat Man”

 

Per Donald Trump, “If we didn’t intend to ever use them [nuclear weapons], why do we build them in the first place?”

 

If you are looking for something that scares the “bejesus out of you”, just think about this!  “When Trump takes office in January, he will have sole authority over more than 7,000 nuclear warheads. There is no failsafe. The whole point of US nuclear weapons control is to make sure that the president, and only the president, can use them if he decides to do so.”

 

Unfortunately, the one sure way to keep a President Trump from being able to launch a nuclear attack, under the system we’ve had in place since the Cold War, to avoid this problem would have been to elect someone else.  That’s the only alternative. 

 

Just look at all the people that were concerned at the prospect of giving a real estate mogul and reality TV star, the power to launch attacks that could or would kill millions of innocent people.  The reason there is so much concern is that during the campaign, Donald Trump actually asked this question, “If we didn’t intend to ever use them [nuclear weapons], why did we design and build them in the first place?”  Trump apparently has no concept of having nuclear weapons that are so devastating that it would deter any other nation from using or developing them.  Germany under Adolf Hitler in WWII was working to develop the atomic bomb, but fortunately, the US beat them to it.

 

>>> President Obama had said that Trump did not have the temperament to be in charge of the nation’s nuclear codes.

 

>>> Hillary Clinton said in a speech: “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”

 

>>> Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) said he didn’t think he could be trusted with the launch codes

 

>>> Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) became the second US senator to hesitate when asked whether she'd trust Donald Trump with the US nuclear arsenal.

 

But does the president really have his finger on the ability to push the button to release nuclear weapons?

 

Here’s the way it actually works:

 

The procedure for ordering a nuclear attack involves more than one person: The president cannot literally press a button on his desk and start World War III. There is no “nuclear button” at all.

 

Instead, the US nuclear command-and-control system is bureaucratically and technically complex, stretching out to encompass land-based missile silos, submarine-based ballistic and cruise missiles, and nuclear weapons capable of being dropped from bombers. This is known as the “Nuclear Triad”.  Nuclear weapons that can be delivered from “land, sea or air”.  (And don’t forget, Donald Trump did not know what the “Nuclear Triad” was when he was asked in an election campaign interview.)

The chain of command requires that the president order the Secretary of Defense to carry out a launch; the secretary serves as the conduit for implementation by the military.

 

There are succession policies in place so that the procedure can be continued in the event of the death or incapacitation of either the president or the Secretary of Defense, or their designated successors.

 

Most of the details of how a nuclear war could be started are classified, because an enemy who knew enough about the system could come up with ways to complicate or defeat it. But what is known is that an aide is always following the president, carrying at least one large satchel (often two) known as the “nuclear football.”  It reportedly contains information about nuclear attack possibilities and how the president could verify his identity, authenticate orders and communicate with the military about implementing them.

 

All year, the prospect of giving this man the ability to launch attacks that would kill millions of people was one of the main reasons his opponents argued against electing him.  Unfortunately, the voters in three key rust-belt states didn’t listen to those reasons.  Those three states gave Trump the Electoral College, not the massive popular vote that went to Hillary.

 

The history of how the only country to ever use nuclear weapons in a World War is interesting.

 

When the legal framework for nuclear weapons was developed, the overall fear was not about an irrational president (like a Donald Trump), but it was concern about a potential trigger-happy general. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which was passed with President Harry Truman’s signature after nine months of acrimonious congressional hearings, firmly put the power of the atomic bomb in the hands of the president and the civilian components of the executive branch, not the military. It was a momentous and controversial law, crafted in the months following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII, with an eye toward future nuclear standoffs with the Soviet Union.

 

The members of Congress who wrote the law, with the backing of the scientists who worked on the original Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb, framed it explicitly as a question of who controls the power to use nuclear weapons.  The question that was asked was: Is dropping an atomic bomb a military act or a political one? If it is inherently political, above and beyond a regular military tactic, then that power could not be entrusted to the military. Ultimately, the president was supposed to be a check against the Pentagon pushing to use nukes more often.

 

The scientists’ fears were based on their experiences in WWII. Their work under the Army Corps of Engineers and the Army Air Forces left them with a sour taste: Generals, they had concluded, cared little about ethics, democracy or international politics. Even during the war, some civilians involved with atomic-bomb work feared that the military had become too eager to leave German and Japanese cities in cinders with their carpet bombing. The then Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, (Before it became the Secretary of Defense) learned about the ruinous firebombing of Tokyo from the press. He warned Truman that letting the military run the show might cause the United States to “get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities.”  He was correct.

 

This division between military and civilian control over nuclear weapons has changed over the years. In the late 1940s, US nuclear weapons would have their nuclear components, the plutonium or uranium items that were needed to start nuclear their reactions, they were inserted or removed as needed. The nuclear parts of the atomic bombs were back then in the custody of the civilian Atomic Energy Commission, the precursor to the present-day Energy Department, while the military controlled the non-nuclear parts. The president had the power to transfer these items to the military and order their use.

 

But by late in the Eisenhower administration, more compact and complex weapons had been developed,  But their nuclear and nonnuclear parts could not be separated. Fearing a Soviet sneak attack, which could have had a ballistic missile reach the US mainland from the Soviet Union in 30 minutes, President Eisenhower put the military in charge of most of the US nuclear stockpile to streamline a possible response. Eisenhower also “pre-delegated” authority to the military to use tactical nuclear weapons, but aimed at military facilities, not Soviet cities, without getting specific presidential approval in certain situations.  Examples of that were if Soviet tank columns started rolling into Germany.  (Remember, this was just before the Soviets built the Berlin Wall that separated the communist East Germany from the democratic West Germany.)

 

Which by the way, “Is the border “Wall” that Trump wants to build between the US and Mexico, just another up-dated version of the “Berlin Wall”?

 

Fears of low-level commanders setting off nuclear conflicts during the tensions of the early 1960s persuaded President John F. Kennedy to dial back some of this potential action.  Miscommunications during the Cuban missile crisis had almost led to the use of nuclear weapons by both US and Soviet troops in Cuba, and US weapons stationed abroad, such as the Jupiter missiles in Turkey.  These nuclear missiles could have been used by any army that seized their control. There were also lingering concerns about “Dr. Strangelove” type rogue generals which ideas were sparked by the then popular US movie. The head of the Strategic Air Command, Gen. Thomas Power at the time, was a frightening proponent of preemptive nuclear war.

 

Similar concerns within the upper reaches of the Kennedy administration led to a push for technologies to “lock” the nuclear weapons and prevent their use without some kind of codes or authorization. Some early versions were as primitive as using standard combination locks like you now use on your bicycles or school lockers.  Later versions were developed with complex electro-mechanical systems that could physically disable a weapon if it were tampered with or if the wrong code was entered too many times.

 

Eventually, the brass adopted the idea that, when it came to nuclear matters, they were at the beck and call of the president. It was not the generals’ responsibility to make the order; it was their responsibility instead to carry it out.  That’s where it stands today…..but now that we have Donald Trump at the helm….well…?

 

The people who set up the current command-and-control system did believe there was a check in place.  It was our “elections”. If you don’t want an insane president to have nuclear weapons, then don’t put an insane one in office.

 

Now this wasn’t much of a check, as even rational presidents have bad days and even high-functioning people succumb to mental illness or substance abuse.

 

But no one imagined someone like a Donald Trump actually being elected, and we know that Trump likes to be “unpredictable”.  But that doesn’t work so well if you believe in diplomacy.

 

Congress ceded considerable amounts of power to the presidency in 1946.  Now, seventy years later, maybe it is time that the lawmakers took some of that power back….?

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016