Trusting the sanity of the president

[Fincayra]

So, I went down a wikipedia rabbit hole while reading about the transmission of power, and I ended up on this guy's page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hering

He was discharged from the air force for asking how he could trust the sanity of a president ordering a nuclear launch. So, given today's polarized nation, with plenty of people thinking Trump is an incompetent buffoon, and plenty of other people who think Joe Biden is a hair sniffing Parkinson's sufferer, is that question too much to ask? And, if you want to take the identity of the president issuing the orders out of it, what would be going through your mind if you were in the situation of having to turn the key on a nuclear launch?

[s_bushido]

My interpretation, based solely on that article, is that he was discharged because the very act of asking the question meant that he was unfit for the position. Seems to me like this would be something that pretty clearly falls under the 25th Amendment. If the president is somehow deranged enough to give an order like that...well...he can be removed. It's up to the presidents staff, cabinet, advisors, etc to make sure that he's of sound mind...not the officers who would be carrying it out.

[Mormolyce]

Well the President at the time was Nixon, so I think time proved him right.

[Gaidax]

I think much of these Hollywood stories about how president has this case with big red button are a tad overblown.

I'm pretty sure it would take a bit more than a guy waking up in the morning, saying "let's nuke them for lulz" and smashing the button to trigger WWIII.

It's a president, not some kind of god there. There are checks and balances everywhere, including that scenario.

[Fincayra]

I think much of these Hollywood stories about how president has this case with big red button are a tad overblown.

I'm pretty sure it would take a bit more than a guy waking up in the morning, saying "let's nuke them for lulz" and smashing the button to trigger WWIII.

It's a president, not some kind of god there. There are checks and balances everywhere, including that scenario.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football

That's the case carried with the president at all times. Coupled with the President's own card, which is carried on his person at all times, he can then order a nuclear launch from basically anywhere. It filters down through the chain of command, he doesn't push the button and immediately launches it.

And as far as vetoing that power, there isn't any as far as I'm aware.

[s_bushido]

And as far as vetoing that power, there isn't any as far as I'm aware.

Like I said, there may not be a veto from someone like the Secretary of Defense, but there are ways for the potentially insane president to no longer be president when the verification of his identity is requested...

[Fincayra]

Like I said, there may not be a veto from someone like the Secretary of Defense, but there are ways for the potentially insane president to no longer be president when the verification of his identity is requested...

absolutely. Preventing that situation is what the 25th amendment is all about. But, that particular situation, where he just gets up and says let's start WW3, it cannot be vetoed.

Now, whoever wants to be titled The Kingslayer for the rest of their lives for stopping that, well, that's another story.

[s_bushido]

But, that particular situation, where he just gets up and says let's start WW3, it cannot be vetoed.

Sure it can. He's got to contact those members of the military to determine where the missiles are actually going to go. You can bet your ass they'd be on the phone to the rest of the administration instantly as well. And if the president just gets up and decides to order a strike, he's not the president anymore.

If there's a circumstance where a strike is ordered in a matter of minutes, I have a hard time believing that it's not because intelligence believes there's a credible threat that someone else is going to launch first, so they're prepared for it and it's already been discussed.

Look, I'm not saying it's absolutely impossible. But it's definitely not something an officer taking his/her shift in a silo/sub somewhere is in a position to decide.

[Fincayra]

Sure it can. He's got to contact those members of the military to determine where the missiles are actually going to go. You can bet your ass they'd be on the phone to the rest of the administration instantly as well. And if the president just gets up and decides to order a strike, he's not the president anymore.

If there's a circumstance where a strike is ordered in a matter of minutes, I have a hard time believing that it's not because intelligence believes there's a credible threat that someone else is going to launch first, so they're prepared for it and it's already been discussed.

Look, I'm not saying it's absolutely impossible. But it's definitely not something an officer taking his/her shift in a silo/sub somewhere is in a position to decide.

You make good points. My point is that leading up to the ordering of the launch, the veto is still able to happen, which includes the 25th amendment, or a bullet from someone who is there (hopefully the former, i'd hate for someone to have to do that.) Idk. All I know is I wouldn't want to be someone in that chain of command who knew it was a war-declaring launch and had the ability to not pass it on. If I didn't do it, that's basically treason. If I did, that's the end of the world.

[Gaidax]

Let me rephrase what I said... while there is a physical interface to order the thing, it by itself does not do anything. Such a thing is a planned contingency that needs a lot of approvals and checks before president can even mash that button.

It's not down to one person to start WWIII, which is my main point. It's not a guy ordering pizza there, it's a guy being told "we got this pizza prepared and ready, do you want it?". For that to happen there need to be quite a lot people going crazy there.

[s_bushido]

All I know is I wouldn't want to be someone in that chain of command who knew it was a war-declaring launch and had the ability to not pass it on. If I didn't do it, that's basically treason. If I did, that's the end of the world.

And that's why that guy was dismissed. He wasn't the person who was prepared to push that button with the fate of millions (or billions) on the line, so he couldn't hold that position anymore.

This shit is why nuclear weapons shouldn't even be a consideration in the first place. But unfortunately, we don't live in that world...

[Mihalik]

I think much of these Hollywood stories about how president has this case with big red button are a tad overblown.

I'm pretty sure it would take a bit more than a guy waking up in the morning, saying "let's nuke them for lulz" and smashing the button to trigger WWIII.

It's a president, not some kind of god there. There are checks and balances everywhere, including that scenario.

There are no effective checks on the launch authority of the President beyond using the 25th to take effective power from the president temporarily or otherwise.

While technically the president is supposed to consult various people in his administration and in the military command, he doesn't actually have the obligation to do so, nor anyone have to consent to the orders of the president.

And as the Harold Hering case kinda demonstrates people who meant to execute the orders don't have the ability to question them, and even on the suggestion that they might do so would cause their removal.

It's true that the individual commanders of subs, bombers, ICBM launch sites might refuse to execute their orders coming from a president like Trump, that's a long shot, mostly because the launch commanders have no means of knowing whether the president is actually sane when issuing the orders, whether the country is already under attack etc.

It's a piss poor system that relies on everyone being honest, sane and honorable. It was designed as such because of the fear that in case of a nuclear exchange whatever systems of checks and balances might exist wouldn't be operation or would be destroyed, so the idea is that as long as there is 1 person left alive who holds the title of "POTUS" he can launch a full retaliation, and the system doesn't seem to distinguish between first strike or retaliation.

Relying on the 25th here is a bit of a long shot, as ordering a launch can take as little as a few minutes, way more than it would take to 25th the President.

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018...unch-authority

[Fincayra]

And that's why that guy was dismissed. He wasn't the person who was prepared to push that button with the fate of millions (or billions) on the line, so he couldn't hold that position anymore.

This shit is why nuclear weapons shouldn't even be a consideration in the first place. But unfortunately, we don't live in that world...

So in the "send an object to someone in the past" thread it was brought up that killing Hitler might delay ww2, which would mean that countries who were developing nuclear weapons would have them secretly, and when ww2 actually broke out, it might have been fought with nuclear weapons, in a far more devastating way than just Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With that in mind, I don't really know what could have gone better in our past. Ideally I would have liked it if our learning to harness the atom were only for peacetime uses, IE nuclear power.

I don't really think the bombs are a consideration of our administrations nowadays. I do remember from the Trump thread reading about those nuclear command planes that went up on both sides of the country in case a foreign launch was detected, and that's the "closest" we've come to launching at all for a very long time.

[Thelxi]

What a president can do remotely is authorize a nuclear attack. The most dramatic scenario I can imagine is a surprise attack by a foreign nation that thousands of experts and scientists quickly determine they can swiftly respond to with a nuclear weapon, so they wake up an unaware Biden from his nap for authorization. That is assuming there is no emergency protocol in place that lets the military make these kind of extreme emergency calls without it.

In pretty much all other scenarios, some of the finest minds in the world will determine whether, how and when the nuclear option (or whatever else we are at now) is even considered as a military option. The president would be involved in this process, obviously be briefed on any miniscule development, and ultimately be asked to authorize any potential attack.

So to address your concerns, will a senile Biden fatfinger a missile to Pyongyang as he trips onto his James Bond suitcase with a red button in it? no.

[Gaidax]

What a president can do remotely is authorize a nuclear attack. The most dramatic scenario I can imagine is a surprise attack by a foreign nation that thousands of experts and scientists quickly determine they can swiftly respond to with a nuclear weapon, so they wake up an unaware Biden from his nap for authorization. That is assuming there is no emergency protocol in place that lets the military make these kind of extreme emergency calls without it.

In pretty much all other scenarios, some of the finest minds in the world will determine whether, how and when the nuclear option (or whatever else we are at now) is even considered as a military option. The president would be involved in this process, obviously be briefed on any miniscule development, and ultimately be asked to authorize any potential attack.

So to address your concerns, will a senile Biden fatfinger a missile to Pyongyang as he trips onto his James Bond suitcase with a red button in it? no.

This is basically what I am trying to get through here.

Thanks for articulating this for me.

[Overlord Anrakyr]

Pelosi is already pushing the 25th Amendment to get rid of Biden on account that he's a senile old man, which is true, and then replace him with Kamala Harris.
[Infraction]

[Gaaz]

I would not worry about any single cabinet position single handedly starting a nuclear attack out of the blue. These orders have to be relayed through many hundreds of other people. What is much more dangerous is an automated system mistake, like it happened in 1983. Back then, an atmospheric phenomenon confused a Soviet early warning satellite, which reported that 6 missiles were launched from US. A person in charge of an automated response (meaning no call to the government, just a simple algorithm of "launch detected - counterattack"), single handedly decided not to launch retaliation nukes, even though all of his instruction told him to "hit the button". After US exits Start treaty this coming spring, a new wave of nuclear arms race is bound to follow. And this time we are dealing with much faster, multiple warhead missiles that basically can not be shot down. This leaves only one option - retaliation and M.A.D. But because response times would be so much shorter this time around, more likely than not all sides would rely more on early warning automated systems, minimizing human input to a minimum. If such a system would fail, this poses a much grater risk than a sudden craze of any particular individual. Simply because there would be little to no time to properly analyze the situation and react accordingly. That is my opinion on the subject anyways.
PS. After a bit of research of the 1983 incident, I should correct myself. The officer in charge could not initiate a counterattack himself. But he could relay information that a launch was detected to people who could. He ended up not reporting it until much later, because this could have led to a counterattack and he had his doubts about this new warning system.

[Mihalik]

What a president can do remotely is authorize a nuclear attack. The most dramatic scenario I can imagine is a surprise attack by a foreign nation that thousands of experts and scientists quickly determine they can swiftly respond to with a nuclear weapon, so they wake up an unaware Biden from his nap for authorization. That is assuming there is no emergency protocol in place that lets the military make these kind of extreme emergency calls without it.

In pretty much all other scenarios, some of the finest minds in the world will determine whether, how and when the nuclear option (or whatever else we are at now) is even considered as a military option. The president would be involved in this process, obviously be briefed on any miniscule development, and ultimately be asked to authorize any potential attack.

So to address your concerns, will a senile Biden fatfinger a missile to Pyongyang as he trips onto his James Bond suitcase with a red button in it? no.

That's simply untrue.

That system has been designed from ground up for all command and control to be centralized as much as possible in a single individual. Furthermore the system is designed around reverse escalation. As in your first option is always the nuclear option and you meant to work your way down from that, which is intended to be as hard as possible.

The protocol concentrates authority and emphasizes speed to such a degree that it may allow a president to railroad the nuclear commanders into initiating a first strike without apparent cause and quickly executing an order that may be horrifyingly misguided, illegal, or both. A demented commander-in-chief could start a nuclear conflagration that no one could forestall, veto, or stop.

Equally deleterious, a president can become hostage to the protocol itself, like a conductor on a runaway train, if an enemy nuclear strike appears underway. He may be pushed into hastily ordering “retaliation” in response to a false alarm. Rationality would be lost in the fog of crisis under a short deadline fraught with confusion and emotion.

They built a construct that powerfully biased the president’s decision process toward launch before the arrival of the first enemy warhead…a move in practice to a system structured to drive the president invariably toward a decision to launch under attack.”12

This is called “jamming” the president, or pressuring him to quickly authorize retaliation while under apparent or confirmed attack.

Scientists, strategists etc get zero input. The best they can hope for is the president consult the Joint Chiefs and his security advisers. Otherwise this is it.

Formally, he does not need any approval or consent, although StratCom or others on the call could attempt to dissuade the president if his thinking or final decision veer into the realm of the obviously misguided or illegal.7 Even the defense secretary has no particular role other than offering advice if asked. Contrary to widespread belief, he does not confirm the order or otherwise bless it in any way. But this is their last chance to change the president’s mind before a formal launch order is prepared by the Pentagon, disseminated, and inexorably implemented.

From there, the launch happens in a matter of minutes.

When the president finally declares his choice of option, it would challenge the president to authenticate using a special code known as the “biscuit,” or Gold Code. This would take a few seconds. If the codes match properly, it would quickly format and transmit a launch order over multiple communications channels directly to the submarine, bomber, and underground launch crews.

This would take a couple of minutes. Shorter than the length of a “tweet,” the order would specify the war plan, the time to begin the strike, an unlock code needed by the firing crews to release their weapons, and a Sealed Authentication Code that must match the codes in the firing crews’ safe. If the codes match, the crews assume the order originated with the president, even though all the codes in the launch order are held exclusively by the Pentagon war room and alternate command centers such as StratCom itself.

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2018...unch-authority

The system has absolutely no checks and balances and it was intentionally designed as such.

[Thelxi]

That's simply untrue.

Actually it is true, but feel free to argue otherwise with actually pertinent information to what you are disagreeing with.

[Fincayra]

snip

heck of a post.

This is the meat of the issue really. There needs to be something new put in place, but I don't know what. I get that it takes a considerable amount of effort, money, planning and luck to become President, and with all of that comes the terrible responsibility to make sure that we don't start WW3 on a whim. If we're truly at war and most of the cabinet/officials gets wiped out and only the president is left, then he can still initiate a launch. If the plan required permissions from all sorts of people in the administration, that just delays the response, and by the time we launch our missiles, we are dead anyway. So, I see plusses and minuses for both situations, and given the situation, I'd rather have that power consolidated in one person. But I'll say it again. I'd hate to be part of that chain of command who is issuing a launch order. Knowing that order is going to end millions, possibly billions of lives isn't something I could handle.