I heard him say this on the phone on Fox News this morning and was a bit taken aback! I thought only the President had the authority to oder the use of atomic weaponry?
Hackworth appears with some regularity on Art Bell so I don’t know how much creedence to lend his statement, but does that seem a bit outrageous to y’all?
Thanks
Quasi
I meant to add that Col David Hackworth is a retired Marine, sorry!
Quasi
It doesn’t sound unreasonable in a situation where a 2 star general was in the field with nuclear artillery and was put in a situation where he had to decide whether to use it on his own, for whatever reason. These kinds of situations would probably only come up in a major war, because normally a 2 star general would be well linked to the chain of command.
BTW, tactical nukes are nowhere near as destructive as the ones that are used strategically. A single nuclear artillery shell probably wouldn’t be able to do more than put a large dent in a spread out and dug-in division, esp. if their communications gear was shielded against EMP.
Hackworth has always been a bit of a sensationalist, Badtz. In his statement to the anchor he used the phrase “A two star (general) will be able to push the button (in Iraq)”
(Parentheses mine, since I don’t remember the quote verbatim).
Thanks
Quasi
Also, there were two other retired Army colonelson the program with him, and one stated that if this were the case then the President had better rescind that order ASAP. In other words, Hackworth made it sound like it was more than just tactical nukes the two star general had authority to fire.
This was in conjunction with a news story that 20 K 3rd Infantry troops have been deployed to the Gulf…
Q
I don’t know who this Hackworth is and haven’t listened to the program, I was just stating my opinion that the idea that 2 star generals might have the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons is not unusual.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there were a few tactical nukes in the area, to be used under the absolutely most positively dire circumstance and with full accountability afterward. What would surprise me would be the existence of an American 2-star general that would even consider tossing a 20-kiloton nuke without talking to the President first, unless he knew the President had just been taken out by a nuclear terrorist attack on Washington or some other doomsday scenario.
At the very least, the Major-General still has to get the idea past his staff, so if he went visibily nuts and started ordering nukes for no reason, the Brigadiers would smile and nod, smile and nod, and very hastily remove him from command.
Actually, the commander of a nuclear sub (rank of Captain, typically) and his top four or five officers could conceivably cooperate and launch strategic nukes, which are hugely more destructive. In theory, they need direct Presidential input to do so, but I don’t doubt they could fire autonomously if they had to.
Please, he was in the Army. This Marine does not claim him.
Marines don’t do nukes, until they start issuing Nuclear Hand Grenades.
My apologies.
Quasi
Eh, why is this in IMHO? I think it’s perfect GQ material.
OK, I do have a question: How much authority does a subordinate have to remove a crazy CO from command? If General Jack T. Ripper is ordering men on a Charge of the Light Brigade repeat in the heat of battle, could Major Tom (ranking officer physically closest to the nutball) pull his sidearm and do away with Jack?
If the situation were less extreme, what’s the general procedure? Vote of those next-highest in the chain? (Sorry, that’s the only halfway-reasonable method I can come up with right now.)
Well, The Caine Mutiny refers to section 184 of Navy regulations:
These are (possibly obsolete) Navy regs, but the other branches probably have similar articles. The second-in-command would definitely contact higher authority if he could, but if for some reason he couldn’t, it’s time to make a very hard possibly career-ending decision.
I imagine the second-in-command would need the support of his underlings. Can you imagine the conversation?
SiC: You’re crazy.
CO: You’re subordinate.
SiC: You are relieved of command and shall report to the physician.
CO: You are relieved of command and shall report to the brig.
SiC: You shall face a competency hearing and a lifetime of therapy.
CO: You shall face a field court-martial and the Danny Deever.
Career-ending? Well, that’s a nice way of putting it. A career can end at the end of a rope along with everything else.
I’d bet even deploying tactical nukes would require CinC or SECDEF approval, let alone using them. The only way I can see Hackworth being remotely correct is if a two-star requests deployment and gets a green light. He then requests from SECDEF/CinC that execution authority for the weapons be delegated down to his level.
I’ve seen sensitive weapons (much more kinder than nukes) go through all sorts of hoops to get approved for deployment and use. I can only imagine nukes have a more stringent process. This is due to their strategic impact considering their use will be attributed to the U.S., and even farther back to whatever country allowed it (wittingly or unwittingly) to be stored on and used from their soil. Just because it’s tactical in nature doesn’t mean it won’t have extreme strategic effects.
Just remember, if you feel you absolutely have to remove your CO from command, your career is over whether you were correct or not. Even if you were justified, your next CO is never going to trust you. So it has to be an incident worth throwing away your career even at best, and facing a firing squad at worst.
“Who’s the third most powerful man in the world? The captain of an Ohio class submarine.”
I think people are placing too much symbolism on the “nuclear” aspect of tactical nuclear weapons.
Yes, they are nuclear. But they are best viewed as very, very large conventional munitions. The Daisy Cutter convential bomb isn’t too far off from a tactical nuke either.
A B-2 Bomber can deliver as much or more damage with a conventional payload and nobody here is upset that a whole wing of these planes falls under a single general/commander.
Just my perspective.
The US Army possesses an unknown (read that as classified) number of tactical nuclear artillery shells. One of the units I served in during the 80’s and 90’s was “Nuke capable.” Members of our Special Weapons Section trained to prepare and fire nuclear artillery shells. As these are tactical weapons the order to fire cannot come down a long chain of command. Thus at some point the highest levels of command would authorize the weapons release from a central storage area in to the direct control of a theater commander. Once released into the hands of the theater commander he would be able to give the command to use the weapons. Technically this could be a general of any rank.
Ultimately the man who pushes the button, or in this case, pulls the lanyard, does the deed. That could be someone as low ranking as an E-4.
As an aside, back in the Early Nineties President Bush Senior disbanded the Special Weapons teams in the Active and Reserve US Army Artillery. I’m not certain how may Nuke capable Units exist. I’ve been out for a few years so I’m not up to date on that.
In any event I can’t see any need for tactical nukes in the Gulf now. Their purpose was to equalize the numerical disparity between NATO and Warsaw Pack Forces in Europe. I recall scenarios involved the use of tactical Nukes at choke points such as the Fulda Gap. We are not faced with such a disparity in numbers (or choke points). When you factor in training and equipment of the Iraqi forces there is no call for such a weapon.