How to limit presidential authority to order the use of nuclear weapons | Hacker News Reader

How to limit presidential authority to order the use of nuclear weapons

thebulletin.org

16 pointsokket13 comments

There is a young man, probably a Navy officer, who accompanies the President. This young man has a black attaché case which contains the codes that are needed to fire nuclear weapons. I could see the President at a staff meeting considering nuclear war as an abstract question. He might conclude: “On SIOP Plan One, the decision is affirmative, Communicate the Alpha line XYZ.” Such jargon holds what is involved at a distance.
My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, “George, I’m sorry but tens of millions must die.” He has to look at someone and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home.

When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, “My God, that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President’s judgment. He might never push the button.”

Fisher, Roger. "Preventing Nuclear War", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1981)

It's the president who wouldn't think twice about knifing someone to launch nukes that I'm most concerned about.

In addition to the difficulty in finding volunteers to carry the football, that approach would also fail to address the authorization / orders to release tactical nuclear weapons such as those carried onboard ships.

Or alternatively a request for release from a NATO member, which only needs to be 'approved' by the POTUS and his designated second-man ( SecDef or theatre commander ).

Before asking "how", the first question should be "why"?

Is it because the president is not very popular with some groups? The previous president has the exact same problems, with just different groups.

Have we just stopped believing that even if you do not like the person, maybe they will just do their job in a time when immediate decision must be taken?

Because placing the ability to destroy cities in the hands of a single individual is objectively a bad idea.

Here's an answer: no single human being, popular or unpopular with any group, should have the sole authority to commit a nation to a nuclear conflict.

You are entitled to an opinion, but this means replacing a system that had never had any problem (because it is mostly a deterrent) by another that may have known and problems (decision by consensus is less of a deterrant)

The burden of proof is on those who advocate that change.

>You are entitled to an opinion, but this means replacing a system that had never had any problem

The submarine model in the article doesn't have consensus in it, its very binary in its decision making process.

Nobody (even those who thought he was the devil) thought Obama was going to be reckless with nuclear weapons. So that is false equivalence.

What should really happen is mandatory mental health assessments for every president. They have physical health assessments. We need to stop stigmatizing mental health and treat it just like physical health. It's only a matter of time till we get someone with serious mental health issues during their term. Germany had a president who developed sever dementia.

Trump just passed the regular dementia test, so it is not completely ignored at least.

That was what I'd thought as well.

I'm not his biggest fan, but the level of hysteria that surrounds Trump is more amazing to me than almost anything he does.

The worst part of all this is, what many people don't seem to realise is, by acting out the way that they do, they only strengthen Trump's support with his core voters.

There was an article I read (that I'll try to find), that described how the Italians got rid of Berlusconi. I'll dig it up, because as the old saying goes, if you don't learn from history you're doomed to repeat it.

EDIT: Here's the aforementioned article...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/21/if-berlusconi-...

EDIT 2: Actually, I think it was this NYT article I was thinking of:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/opinion/the-right-way-...

I'll keep the Guardian article on this post for the additional comments on the parallels between Trump and Berlusconi.

I'd support a constitutional amendment to guarantee 'no first use', regardless of who is in office.

If verifiable global nuclear disarmament was possible, I'd support that as well.

As a citizen of the USA, I don't want to share the ethical responsibility for starting a nuclear war.

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