Holding a hearing is a nice first step, but that’s all it is. This is a time for action by Congress. Yes, I know, that’s a contradiction in terms.
Are the launch codes with the president or in the Capitol? Ultimately, that’s the bottom line.
And what about conventional weapons/personnel? Why hold a hearing only on nukes?
Is this a good idea? I get it, but I also feel like it’s almost provoking Trump to assert himself in the most awful way imaginable. Remember that we’re dealing with a sociopathic narcissist here. Normal rules don’t apply.
Of course more should be done, but by that standard we shouldn’t be in this situation at all. We have a potentially tragic deficit of courage, integrity, and competence in this country’s political and media culture and it’s probably wise to be glad if anything good happens ever. Corker sounding the alarm is a good thing. If we get this President’s insane recklessness and total control of the nuclear weapons with which he has an unhealthy fascination into the national conversation we’re better off. Regular folks need to realize what we’re looking at. I spent part of a dinner the other day assuring my cousin that the President can shoot off nukes all by himself. Nobody else has to agree to it. She’s a smart person but she thought somebody else had to be persuaded, there was a group process, something. Probably nineteen out of twenty people or more think the same thing.
Thank you Mr Corker!
If it gets us to put more safeguards in place, then that will be a good thing. I’m just curious: Are we the only nation whose leader is flanked by a “nuclear football” everywhere he/she goes? It’s so bizarrely Strangelovian, and so quintessentially American! What does Putin have? A nuclear samovar?
Trump is THE problem. He is intellectually and temperamentally unworthy of holding the office. With the innate short time line for a decision on the use of nuclear power, that decision cannot be made “by committee.” While I appreciate Corker coming around in finding Trump dangerous, his initiative is misplaced and unrealistic. Impeachment is the answer!
The damn thing doesn’t look like a football. My only guess is that military planners like football metaphors and since the ball is a key object of the game it seemed to fit. Nicknames are weird sometimes.
I doubt it’ll happen but I’d weep in relief if Congress folks were quietly spooked enough to get a no-first-use or even just approval authority for pre-emptive or preventive use through. I know McConnell and Ryan and most of the rest are suicidally political and gutless, we’ve seen that, but a feller can dream.
To those who dabble in that side of the world, this is an astounding statement. US nuclear posture since time immemorial has been premised on the absolute necessity for the United States to be able to react to a hostile strike within single-digit minutes.
To say “we need to limit the President’s authority to use nuclear weapons” is no less a statement than “we are just as afraid of Donald Trump as we are of the Russians.”
It is, in a word, bigly.
Yeah I would prefer that there be a quiet understanding among the relevant people that any nuclear orders from Trump are to be ignored. And he need never know about it.
I understand your point. But once we suspend the operation of our checks and balances system of government because we’re afraid of our President, we’re living under a dictatorship. And that is as damaging as any bomb, if not more so.
Sometimes, I’m not sure what’s worse. Donald Trump with the keys to our nuclear football or Vladimir Putin. At least Purim has a modicum of intelligence and common sense.
The whole point of MAD (Mutual assured destruction) is that the US will respond to a nuclear attack with a nuclear counter-attack, and that since such an attack would presumably knock out most or all of the inter-communication between various entities, the authority to launch a counter-strike within minutes must be self-contained in the presidency. That is why the nuclear triad (bombers, missiles, submarines) exists — it would be impossible for an enemy first strike to eliminate all the counter-strike capabilities at once.
However, what concerns Sen. Corker and a lot of the rest of us is the possibility that our deranged maximum leader might, in his tendency to shoot from the hip without thinking of what lies beyond, decide to launch a first strike himself. There would be no surer way to bring down the opprobrium of the world on the US than such an insane act, but as said, this bad imitation of an adult human being tends to do impulsive things, especially when he is being criticized.
Mutual nuclear deterrence worked for 40 years between the US and the USSR. It works still between India and Pakistan. Why of a sudden would it not work with NK? General Turgidson was right in that the US would survive a relatively small nuclear attack, but certainly Kim-Jong-Un knows that his relatively tiny fiefdom would not. He is crazy in his own way, but not suicidal.
This is a good thing. Getting his incompetence out there as part of the political dialogue is a just and wise move.
It may lead to nothing of course, but even if it does lead to nothing it’s still pretty delicious. You go, Corker. Expose the incompetent idiot for exactly what he is.
Coker is doing a good thing; however, some of the reliably hawkish Senators need to join in.
As far as his ability to go ahead on his own with a nuclear attack, my question is how much does the conscience of people »down the chain of command » play into the equation? I seem to recall the Defense Secretary or another person in Nixon’s inner circle making it known that no command from Nixon to launch so be followed without first being approved by him. Is it true this happened? Does this give us hope that similar action has been taken with Trump?
I’m going to jump in to applaud Senator Corker for this move. It will piss off the Orange Menace and shine a light on a real problem. It is just a first step, and remember, a single Senator can’t make changes to the law. Baby steps, people, baby steps. I’ll also feel a lot better if Corker stops rubber-stamping any nominees sent before the Senate for “advice and consent.”
Nobody who knows for sure is in a position to answer this question with authority, but we may hazard a guess by the fact that the E-4 National Emergency Airborne Command Posts, extensively modified 747s which exist basically as survivable nuclear strike coordination platforms, are mirrored in its role by the Russian Il-80 and, at least through 2001, French C-160s. Given how expensive these programs were, and how inexpensive a hand-carried unit would be in comparison, it seems likely there is an equivalent package in every nuclear-armed nation that vests this power in a single official.
Note that some nuclear-armed nations (the PRC, I suspect) may treat nuclear strike capability in a way less orthogonal to conventional military assets.
for those who want to cheerfully read about the end of the world,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-80
I’ve read that about Nixon. For anyone in the current administration to arrange something similar would be highly patriotic and a huge, mutinous violation of the chain of command, as it was then. If it happens we’re lucky but it would be unwise to count on it.
We’ll never know. If it happened, it was certainly extralegal and depended on the personalities and trusts of individual actors, not the weight of law.