Trump has sole authority to launch nuclear weapons on a whim
By
Jon Letman , Truthout
Dating back to the Eisenhower
administration, the system that gives U.S. presidents the ability to
launch a nuclear strike at a moment’s notice revolves around what is known as
the “nuclear football.” The “football” (formally called the presidential
emergency satchel) is carried by a military aide who accompanies the president
wherever he goes. As a backup, a second aide carrying another “football”
follows the vice president.
The bulky, black, leather-bound 45-lb.-aluminum satchel is believed to contain laminated sheets printed with dozens of nuclear war plans and options, instructions on communicating with the public during a national emergency, and a secure satellite phone — all intentionally low-tech and offline to avoid vulnerability to hacking or technical glitches.
At all times, the president and vice president also carry
sealed plastic cards, roughly the size of credit cards, informally called
“biscuits” for their resemblance to cookies in a foil wrapper. Officially
called the sealed authenticator system, the “biscuit” contains alphanumeric
authentication codes to be used by the president to verify their identity.
For the duration of their term, Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance will be accompanied by the tools necessary to launch a nuclear attack. “Wherever they go, whatever they’re doing, there will always be a military aide with them with the satchel, just in case,” Stephen Schwartz, a nonresident fellow at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, told Truthout.
Schwartz, who has closely followed the
nuclear football for years, says that prior to taking the oath of office, the
incoming president and vice president receive a briefing from a military aide,
possibly representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will present an overview
of their nuclear responsibilities, including how to communicate a nuclear order
to the National Military
Command Center and U.S. Strategic
Command. That briefing may be the first and only time the president
delves into nuclear war planning.
“Nuclear weapons are an existential threat to humankind, no
matter what administration is in the White House.”
Schwartz calls this system — in which those who are trained
to follow orders are far removed from the person making the decision to launch
an attack that could result in tens or hundreds of millions of deaths —
“precarious.” The nuclear football, though, is central to the U.S.’s nuclear
deterrence strategy, sending a powerful message to the world.
Under the doctrine of sole authority, the
president alone, with no constraints or requirement of consultation, can order a nuclear
attack at any time, against any target, for any reason. The
president has the option to select from dozens of nuclear war plans to either
initiate a first strike or respond to an incoming attack from any location,
raising the question: Should any human being have access to or responsibility
for this kind of destructive power?
Congress Weighs In (Sort of)
In December, The New York Times published
the results of a three-question survey sent
to all 530 voting members of Congress about their views on presidential sole
authority to launch a nuclear attack without congressional approval. The
overwhelming majority of senators and congressmembers did not respond or
declined to comment, but at least 17 Democratic members of Congress said they
opposed presidential sole authority to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike or
respond to a nuclear attack without consulting Congress.
Among those who responded was Sen. Edward Markey of
Massachusetts, who wrote, “A no-first-use policy should be the law of the land
… nuclear weapons are an existential threat to humankind, no matter what
administration is in the White House.”
Rep. John Garamendi of California told the Times,
“These weapons are far too dangerous for any one person, and the pressure for a
decision will be immense. When the consequences of a decision are existential,
we should have more checks, not less.”
Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada said, “It is time for us to
reconsider sole authority. … No president should be able to unilaterally launch
a retaliatory [nuclear] strike. There ought to be some procedure by which the
president must seek counsel from others.”
Five Republican lawmakers responded to the survey with only
one showing support for any limits to presidential nuclear authority. Rep.
Jefferson Van Drew of New Jersey said, “A pre-emptive nuclear attack should
require congressional approval.”
90 Seconds to Midnight
In 2023, the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists announced it had advanced the hands
of the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight, symbolizing
humanity’s closest proximity to global catastrophe. Sharon Squassoni, a
research professor of international affairs at George Washington University,
who served on the Bulletin’s science and security board in 2023, told Truthout, “For
many decades, Americans have been fairly complacent about the trust they placed
in American presidents not to get us into a nuclear exchange.”
“Should the president decide to do this … who is going to
object? Who will have time to object? You’re talking about minutes.”
“If you believe in democracy, you believe that the public
has a right and a responsibility to be engaged on all public policy issues,”
Squassoni says. “I can’t think of a more important issue than what we do with
nuclear weapons. As the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons in war,
I also believe the U.S. has a special responsibility to reduce those dangers.”
Squassoni says the question of presidential nuclear
authority shouldn’t be politicized because regardless of who is in the White
House, the decision-making structure is fundamentally the same. “I think that
we really should have a public debate about whether we want to invest that kind
of power in a single person in the U.S. government.”
U.S. nuclear deterrence, she says, is largely predicated on
the idea of “use it or lose it,” particularly with regards to land-based Intercontinental
Ballistic Missiles positioned in underground silos across the
American West where they are considered more vulnerable to attack than nuclear
submarines or bombers.
Squassoni says a debate over the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal is
overdue. “Are the circumstances that we envision for using nuclear weapons too
broad? Do we have too many capabilities? Right now the conversation is going in
the opposite direction, which is: build up to be able to simultaneously
deter two peer
competitors [Russia and China].”
“I don’t know if the American public has the attention span
for this, but it’s really quite serious when you consider just how few
guardrails there are to launch an entire arsenal,” Squassoni said. “Should the
president decide to do this and it is authenticated, who is going to object?
Who will have time to object? You’re talking about minutes. It’s pretty scary.”
Schwartz agrees on the need for greater public engagement.
“Nuclear weapons have been manufactured, deployed and paid for with literally
trillions of our tax dollars to supposedly protect us. We not only have the
right but the responsibility to know what the government is doing in our name
and to make sure our elected officials hear our voices on this truly
existential issue,” Schwartz said. “If we fail to exercise that right, the
largely anonymous, highly secretive military-civilian nuclear bureaucracy will
continue to make very costly decisions on our behalf, decisions that could
endanger our lives and our livelihood.”
According to newly published
figures, the United States currently maintains a stockpile of
roughly 3,700 warheads, with a total inventory of approximately 5,177 nuclear
warheads, including those in reserve and others awaiting dismantlement.
Insufficient Guardrails
Squassoni told Truthout the Biden
administration missed an opportunity by failing to revisit the question of
nuclear launch procedures and reconsidering how to strengthen political
controls over the U.S. nuclear arsenal. With sufficient political will, she
says, changes could and should be made, although she doesn’t expect Donald
Trump will voluntarily propose restraints on his own power.
Nuclear weapons, she says, “are all about perceptions and
the credibility of threats to use them.” And while the military is trained to
use them if given the order, Squassoni says, “To my mind, nuclear weapons use
is not credible … I think we need to walk ourselves back from this precipice,
and [as] quickly and safely as possible.”
Meaningful changes will require nuclear-armed states to
admit that these weapons are not useable and therefore do not provide security.
Meaningful changes, she says, will require nuclear-armed
states to admit that after 80 years, these weapons are not useable and
therefore do not provide security.
Joan Rohlfing, president and chief operating officer at the
nonpartisan nonprofit Nuclear Threat
Initiative, asks, “Why are we on such [a] short fuse that we have to
be following the leadership around so they can make a near-instantaneous
decision, and is that system still relevant for today’s world?”
Any U.S. president responding to a warning that a nuclear
attack was underway would be required to respond with imperfect information in
as little as 15 minutes. “We’re asking presidents to make the most
consequential decision of their lives almost instantly, with incomplete
information and nobody to help them,” Rohlfing told Truthout. Such
a responsibility is not only unreasonable, she says, but is unlikely to lead to
the best result in humanity’s interest.
With a long history of nuclear
near-misses and the potential for future mistakes, Rohlfing
says such power should never be concentrated in the hands of any single
individual, no matter their talents or wisdom.
Finding a Better Way
Rohlfing says that if a president was inclined to do so,
they could issue an executive order that could lead to a less dangerous
decision process. The existing doctrine is deeply entrenched, but in the area
of nuclear weapons risk reduction, Rohlfing says presidents can “move the
needle very substantially by taking leadership action.” For example, a
president could issue an executive order stipulating a new process for nuclear
decision making, enabling the president to have more time.
Also, by adopting a No First Use
policy — something the U.S. has declined to do — the pressure
to make very rapid decisions could be relieved. “This is a whole range of force
structure and policy changes we could make to expand decision time to enable a
president to deliberate with his or her advisers.”
Any U.S. president responding to a warning that a nuclear
attack was underway would be required to respond with imperfect information in
as little as 15 minutes.
While there is an assumption that the Trump administration
is likely to be more hawkish when it comes to nuclear weapons, Rohlfing says,
“What we’ve seen from President Trump is he sometimes surprises us. And if he
decides he wants to do something meaningful and historic in the nuclear weapons
risk reduction space, he might just do some things that surprise us — in a
positive way.”
She points to President Richard Nixon’s historic overtures
to China and the dramatic nuclear risk
reduction measures taken under President George H.W. Bush,
including the unilateral reduction of forward-deployed tactical nuclear weapons
and the ending of nuclear bombers being on
around-the-clock alert or always in the air. The potential to
reduce risk and lower tension is there if the president decides to do so.
Power of the People
Rohlfing encourages the public to remember that they have
an important voice in influencing the future of nuclear weapons policies. She
refers to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when an energized and engaged public
demanded change from political leaders and as a result, global nuclear
stockpiles were reduced from roughly 70,000 down to around the
12,000 we have today. “That was triggered by public intervention,” says
Rohlfing. “I would wish for the public to get re-engaged, use your voices,
demand a plan from your political leaders for nuclear security.”
According to a 2023 Chicago Council Surveys opinion poll,
61 percent of people in the U.S. reported being “very/somewhat uncomfortable”
with presidential sole authority to authorize the use of nuclear weapons.”
Today, a host of grassroots
movements and nonpartisan
organizations are advocating for an end to sole authority and
calling for the U.S. to adopt a “No First Use”
policy.
“Despair is not a helpful impulse even though it’s
understandable,” Rohlfing says. And while the current moment can feel
overwhelming, she says people are not without agency. “We’re at a hard point,
but we can fight and demand change from our political leaders. We are not
without power. We all have power. We can either fight this or we can roll over
and let this overtake us, and I prefer the former.”
Jon Letman is a freelance journalist on Kauai. He writes
about nuclear weapons, militarism, human rights and the environment in the
Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Follow him on Bluesky.
