[DaoVeles]

While there are many that argue against this point and I am sympathetic to them, Mutually Assured Destruction is a very powerful deterrent.

One of the reasons why many treaties came a long after WW2 was because for the first time ever, we had weapons on a scale that could truly cause civilization ending events. There is talk about strategic strike capabilities and from the little bits that trickle out from within, it is considered a potential path forward. But it is a path forward that is both political and literal suicide.

A scenario played out in the book 'Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America' by John Michael Greer makes a decent point. Say the US decides to strategically strike an opponent. They manage to take out 199 of 200 potential retaliatory strikes - a great success in terms of the ratio. But that one missile that gets through detonates over San Fransisco becoming the single most deadly event in US history. It just isn't seen as a viable path forward.

Luckily those in power are there because of those below them, you cannot be too loose of a cannon at the top but even that doesn't put ones mind at ease as you just do not know on what could happen. Maybe the lunatics to get control of it all. Strange things can happen.

[defrost]

> you cannot be too loose of a cannon at the top

Meanwhile, in reality:

    “Are there any checks in place to keep the US President from starting a nuclear war?”  

    What’s amazing about this question, really, is how seriously it misunderstands the logic of the US command and control system. It gets it exactly backwards.

    The entire point of the US command and control system is to guarantee that the President and only the President is capable of authorizing nuclear war whenever he needs to. It is about enabling the President’s power, not checking or restricting him.

In a three part detailed longform:

The President and the Bomb (2016) https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/11/18/the-president-and...

Part II https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/12/23/the-president-and...

Part III https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2017/04/10/president-bomb-ii...

[JumpCrisscross]

> entire point of the US command and control system is to guarantee that the President and only the President is capable of authorizing nuclear war whenever he needs to

This may be necessary to ensure the deterrent is credible. But for first strike use, authorisation should require at the very least Congressional approval. (Not the whole Congress, obviously, but maybe the Senate Select and House Permanent Select Committees.) Ideally, all three branches of government.

[defrost]

" should "

Ah, should - imagine a world in which "should" carried sway.

Meanwhile: Air Force Doctrine Publication 3-72 - Nuclear Operations (2020)

    POSITIVE CONTROL

    The President may direct the use of nuclear weapons through an execute order via the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the combatant commanders and, ultimately, to the forces in the field exercising direct control of the weapons.

Page 21 of 29: https://www.doctrine.af.mil/Doctrine-Publications/AFDP-3-72-...

For anybody in the chain that might question that, or want Congressional approval consider the fate of Harold Hering, the Major who was kicked out of the Air Force for asking a “dangerous question” while training to be a Missile Launch Officer at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Hering had asked, in essence, how could he, in his Minuteman missile bunker, know that an order to launch he received from the President had been a legal, considered, and sane one?

The answer is, you don't, you just jump as high as you can.

( even if the guy telling you to jump is also telling you they're eating cats and dogs in Ohio )

[JumpCrisscross]

> anybody in the chain that might question that, or want Congressional approval consider the fate of Harold Hering, the Major who was kicked out of the Air Force for asking a “dangerous question” while training to be a Missile Launch Officer at Vandenberg Air Force Base

I mean, yes. Hering was in the chain of command. The nuclear chain of command. About the last thing you want in that chain is even a notion of a whiff of a perception that when the President says launch the missiles don't launch.

It's completely different for e.g. the Congress to ask these questions. They don't because this isn't an issue Americans have cared about for a while.

[defrost]

If the President orders a launch, the military launches ... that's it.

Congress can ask questions about that later, if they're still about - but they don't have a place in the chain between POTUS deciding to launch and the launch.

Ordering a strike before any missiles have landed on US soil has been possible the entire time (ie ordering what would be an effective First Strike) and deemed neccessary as carrying out such orders after missiles have landed has been considered as likley too little to late - predicated on having accurate justification (knowledge of incoming missiles) etc.

History has been littered with false alarmns that should have (but didn't) trigger a launch - that remains at the judgement of the serving POTUS who might be a combat veteran or a reality TV show host.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If the President orders a launch, the military launches ... that's it

Sure. That doesn't mean every launch must be legal or undeliberateable.

> they don't have a place in the chain between POTUS deciding to launch and the launch

Why not?

The Constitution "vests in the Congress the power to declare war" [1]. It has largely delegated that power to the President. But the spirit of the War Powers Clause recognises that war is a major political decision with national consequences. So is a nuclear first strike.

> Ordering a strike before any missiles have landed on US soil has been possible the entire time (ie ordering what would be an effective First Strike)

Not what first strike means [2]. (You're describing launch on warning, which is firmly in the retaliatory column [3].)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Clause

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_strike_(nuclear_strategy...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_on_warning

[082349872349872]

Many countries can credibly claim to have a "No First Strike" policy; the US is not one of them.

[maxglute]

I think too much of US global security commitments that is underpinned by nuclear umbrella where non-nuclear partners are not going to feel assured about US strategic deterrence if posture shifts away from POTUS can smash red button in heat of the moment to maybe US will eventually retaliate with nuclear... after say warsaw has already been nuked... if there needs to be a committee to debate whether it's worth the risk to trade moscow for new york (which they may not). The lack of oversight is the point, therefore consistent "clarity" that POTUS, even if deranged, doesn't need to consult others. Because US partners _need_ to be assured that US nukes can be in the air in minutes to deter themselves from being nuked, and only way to ensure that perception is to remove all red tape when delegating nuclear authority. There can't be any official/public rhetoric to doubt US is capable of prompt retaliation, even if adversaries do not find posture credible (just like some don't find NFU credible).

Hence the quibbing over verbiage on public facing US nuclear operations manual in other reply chain also largely doesn't matter - formal US nuclear operations documentation itself is ultimately philosophical/propaganda/strategic - we can pretend they actually define US nuclear authority - but IMO their primary purpose is inform adversary nuclear deterrence game theory. Ultimately we don't know what actual US nuclear operations procedure is/will be - there may very well be none-public nuclear operations that is much less flippant than one man decides to end the world, maybe adversary specific ones based on correlation of forces.

[protomolecule]

So you are saying that "US global security commitments" actually increase the danger of the global nuclear catastrophe. Doesn't look secure for me.

[insane_dreamer]

> you cannot be too loose of a cannon at the top

And with Putin on one side and possibly (hopefully not) Trump on the other, that makes two loose cannons. Comforting thought.

[samsin]

Nuclear war between US and Russia is less likely with Trump

[JumpCrisscross]

> Nuclear war between US and Russia is less likely with Trump

Incredibly difficult to estimate this, in large part because the probabilities are so small.

What we can say is neither Russia nor America wants MAD. So the way an exchange would happen would be due to a fuckup. And not any old fuckup, e.g. Ukraine hit Moscow with an American missile or whatever. But a nuclear fuckup, e.g. Moscow thinks it's detected multiple missile launches and can't get the President on the phone.

[samsin]

>Incredibly difficult to estimate this, in large part because the probabilities are so small.

The UN chief has been stating that the risk of nuclear warfare is at the highest point in decades. Not because of the risk of a 'fuckup', but due to geopolitical tensions. Historically the risk has been highest during periods of geopolitical tension.

[JumpCrisscross]

> UN chief has been stating that the risk of nuclear warfare is at the highest point in decades

Would love to see how they're calculating this.

I'd agree we're at post-Cold War high in terms of risk of nuclear war. But that's because we have more nuclear states than before [1]. I'm sceptical we're worse off than the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union was collapsing and former Communist officials were busy staging coups and whatnot. I'm also sceptical that Russia and America are at greater risk of nuclear war than during e.g. the collapse of Yugoslavia or the Syrian civil war.

> Historically the risk has been highest during periods of geopolitical tension

Sure. Though it's difficult to argue anything about nuclear use historically given they've only been used in one campaign, the Cold War was a strategic nuclear stalemate, and the post-Cold War era doesn't particularly sustain your hypothesis. (Pyongyang and Pakistan being particularly-potent wildcards.)

For the sake of argument, however, let's assume you're right. Are you claiming Donald Trump wasn't a source of geopolitical tension? The Trump who continued our occupation of Afghanistan, boosted troops in Iraq and Syria, offed an Iranian major general and seriously weighed leaving NATO? All while launching a multi-pronged salvo at China?

This isn't a Trump v Biden or Harris thing. It's just the reality of a superpower expressing its geopolitical interests.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_we...

[mu53]

Trump wants a peace deal in ukraine that could involve land concessions. Kamala would likely continue the policy of continuous, slow escalation. The most recent escalation is Ukraine shooting long range weapon into Russia, what's next?

Ending a conflict won't affect the probabilities compared to escalating it? De-escalation through escalation will end up in the the history books as the dumbest things western politicians believed in 2024

[JumpCrisscross]

> Ending a conflict won't affect the probabilities compared to escalating it?

If affects it. We just can't universally say which way.

Appeasement is the classic example of escalatory de-escalation. But a better one is the Cold War: America or the USSR entering or withdrawing from a particular theatre, e.g. Vietnam or Afghanistan, was on average orthogonal to risk of nuclear war.

Whether a peace deal enhances or damages the peace is context dependent and can swing either way.

> De-escalation through escalation will end up in the the history books as the dumbest things western politicians believed in 2024

What a strange comment to make in the context of nuclear strategy. Should the U.S. unilaterally dismantle its nuclear deterrent?

[aguaviva]

Trump wants a peace deal in ukraine that could involve land concessions.

Do you think rewarding the aggressor with large-scale land concessions (the only kind they have indicated they will accept), along with other concessions they will certainly demand (a lifting of sanctions, no need to pay financial restitution for the immense suffering and damage they have caused; and certainly no prosecution for war crimes) -- can provide a viable foundation for "peace"?

[Krssst]

> Trump wants a peace deal in ukraine that could involve land concessions.

This would only be temporary until Putin decides what to invade next. He has his country weapons production running at full swing, why stop when he knows he can get what he wants. Granted having all of Europe fully under Putin's control would probably reduce the risk of MAD since the crazy guy got all his wishes. I just hope I won't have to live in such a Europe.

[CapricornNoble]

>This would only be temporary until Putin decides what to invade next. He has his country weapons production running at full swing, why stop when he knows he can get what he wants. Granted having all of Europe fully under Putin's control

This is irrational fearmongering. Let's assume NATO falls apart and it's every country for itself. It will take years for Russia to reconstitute its combat power to sufficient degree to conduct another large-scale mechanized invasion of anything bigger than the Baltic states. Speaking of the Baltics, I'm really not concerned about them, combined pop of ~6 million and GDP of ~$650B...they are roughly the size and impact of Hong Kong, and should not drive policy-making that risks continents of hundreds of millions when the West didn't raise a finger to protect HK from the PRC's authoritarian crackdown.

But let's look at the big nation-states that could be in Russia's sights: they aren't sitting still and are ALSO re-arming with everything from US hardware to South Korean tanks and artillery[0]. Now consider demographics. Poland and Romania have a combined population of ~60 million. Their capital cities have metro areas of ~2 million+, much like Kyiv and Kharkhiv, which Russia hasn't been able to take by force of arms. How would Russia control them if they resisted? What sort of sustained insurgency would the populations (who as I understand it are overwhelmingly anti-Russian) be capable of inflicting? What sort of cost-benefit analysis do you really think Putin is doing that would result in some dystopian return to Russian domination of Eastern Europe? In other words, what does he, and perhaps more importantly, the rest of Russia's siloviki, stand to gain that makes waging an open war and/or counter-insurgency against ~60 million Poles and Romanians worthwhile? If you think Putin is just trying to paint the map like a Hearts of Iron player.....that perspective is simply not in touch with reality.

> I just hope I won't have to live in such a Europe.

You already lived through a period of Putin-dominated Europe, when he had Europe's most important economy in his back pocket: 2000-20013. [1] Russia was printing money selling petrochemicals to German industry. The oligarchs were fat, happy, and spent a bunch of their cash buying European vacation homes and sports teams. The biggest person rocking the boat was Georgia's Mikhael Sakhashvili[2], who Putin simply slapped down as a warning to the US, then went back to printing money (assisted by greasing the wheels with Gerhard Schroder's help)[3]. Second-biggest person rocking the boat was George Bush's administration, which refused to ratify the START II treaty[4], then unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty[5], then insisted on putting ABMs in Russia's near-abroad[6]. And yet....life in Europe got along just fine.

[0] https://ipdefenseforum.com/2024/05/poland-south-korea-defens...

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/vladimir-putin-is-forbes-...

[2]https://www.reuters.com/article/world/georgia-started-war-wi...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-ger...

[4] https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/tr...

[5] https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/tr...

[6] https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/americas-abm...

[insane_dreamer]

Strong disagree. Trump has proven to be unreliable and unpredictable. He’s drunk on his own real or perceived power like a typical cult leader, and cannot be relied on to act rationally. Not unlike Putin.