Opinion SoleAuthority Forty-five feet underground in a command center near Omaha, there’s an encrypted communications line that goes directly to the American president.
Buried below is a military command headquarters constructed in case of a missile attack amid a national emergency.
Yet regardless of who wins this election, or the next one, the American president’s nuclear sole authority is a product of another era and must be revisited in our new nuclear age.
The jet’s crew can contact the president, verify his or her identity and relay a nuclear attack order to bomber squadrons, submarines and intercontinental ballistic missile silos.
It is, however, unacceptable for an American president to have the sole authority to launch a nuclear first strike without a requirement for consultation or consensus.
Persons:
—, Anthony Cotton, Biden, Donald Trump, Harry Truman, Truman, Truman’s, Jake Sullivan, ” Mr, Sullivan, “, Richard Nixon, wasn’t, Trump, Henry Kissinger, Nixon, Mark Milley, Nancy Pelosi, Bob Woodward, Robert Costa, Kissinger, Milley, Robert Kehler, Stratcom, Kehler, we’ve, That’s
Organizations:
U.S . Strategic Command, North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, Joint Chiefs, Staff, American, White House, Strategic Command, White, North, Democrats, Chiefs, Air Force, Senate, U.S ., United
Locations:
United States, Omaha, U.S, America, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Soviet, North Korea, Trump’s