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.

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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