Note: This could go to GD if the answers are classified or not in black and white.
I don’t wish to drag George W. Bush into this discussion. Let us posit President X in the next 15 years. Let us also say that relations between the U.S. and, say, Russia are extremely soured. Now, let us say that President X has got a strange idea that it’s in America’s best interest to deliver a strategic first strike against the Russians.
As Commander and Chief of the armed forces he has access to the nuclear football and is clearly the leader in the event of performing retaliatory strike. However, could he unilaterally decide to nuke anyone he wants? Sure, depending on the situation I could imagine the people under him refusing orders…like if he wanted to nuke Luxembourg for looking at him funny. But, in theory, could he?
I understand that by design the U.S. nuclear command and control is extremely decentralized so as to survive an attempted decaptitation strike. But if the President can’t order a first strike who can?
Have things changed over the year? Could Truman have ordered a first strike against the Russians following WWII?
The President is el hombre with regards to the military. If he wants to launch a first strike I’d suppose he could. I seem to recall reading that Eisenhower seriously considered doing so on the Soviets in the early 50s prior to their having an ability to strike back seriously.
I think you’re right that an irrational act (poor Luxembourg!) would probably be met with military officers who either A) refused such an order outright or B) checked with the VP or higher ups in Congress if they thought the President had lost his mind.
Contrary to popular belieft, the President can not launch a nuclear strike (first or otherwise) by himself.
Any order for a nuclear strike must originate from the National Command Authority, which by statute consists of the President and the Secretary of Defense (or a suitable Acting Secretary of Defense).
IOW, the President can not launch a nuke without the SecDef’s agreement. Of course, the President can fire the SecDef and try his luck with the next guy in line.
I realize that the bits of the constitution that require congresses consent to start a war have been fairly well gutted over the last few decades, but isn’t there still some legal limit to how far the Prez can go in unilaterally using the military in cases where there isn’t any imminent danger to the US?
I mean if he thinks the Ruskies are gonna start a strike of their own in the next few hours and so doesn’t have time to consult congress, thats one thing. But nuking Luxemoborg just because he thinks their jerks or whatever would seem to go beyond that. It’s hard to say a full nuclear strike is a “police action” or “conflict” after all.
Of course we’re basically hypothesizing a psychopathic Prez here, so even if it is illegal it probably wouldn’t stop him. But people under his command might be more comfortable refusing orders if a strike was blatently illegal.
I doubt that Eisenhower “seriously considered” a pre-emptive strike on the Soviet Union. Such a thing might have been discussed as part of a high level conceptual strategy–certainly there were agitators for such an act, the most notable being General Curtis ‘Bombs Away’ LeMay (famously characturized by George C. Scott as General Turgidson in the outstanding documentary Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying And Love The Bomb)–but as far as I’m aware no SIOPs existed for such a strike. (There were at times SIOPs for a pre-emptive nuclear strike in retaliation for a conventional attack upon Western Europe, but that’s a different ball of wax entirely.)
Yes and yes. The order to release ‘special’ (nuclear) weapons for activation needs to be confirmed by a civilian government official in a position confirmed by the Senate, like the Vice President, Cabinet Secretaries, President pro tempore, et cetera. There are ways the chain of command could possibly be bypassed, but the President cannot unilaterally release nuclear weapons.
The President only needs the consent of the Secretary of Defence to launch a strike. POTUS can fire SecDef on a whim and try to get the next highest official in the DoD to approve. If the Senate isn’t in session POTUS can use a recess appointment to install the nearest warm body (SS guard, janitor, tourist, etc) as SecDef. The only thing stopping POTUS from suddenly deciding to nuke Luxembourg or Bhutan is the threat Congress would remove him from office for war crimes or the hope that his subordinates would refuse to obey him long enought for the VP to assemble the Cabinet and invoke the 25th Amendment.
I could swear that I read a Straight Dope column (but now cannot find in the archives) which said that Kissinger told Norad to let him know if they received any “unusual” orders from the White House in the last days of the Nixon presidency. Supposedly there was some fear that Nixon might decide to attempt a first strike attack. Am I imagining things?
I don’t know about that, but Kissinger used to tell a story about how he told the Joint Chiefs not to take any orders from the then supposedly clinically paranoid and chronically intoxicated Nixon. No doubt Kiss grossly exaggerated if not entirely fabricated the story (as he was wont to do) but it floated around for years.