Doubts about USA Nuke release process.

[Onceapilot]

Can you believe these comments reported by the BBC on the subject of POTUS Nuclear release process? :confused:
Quote BBC:
One of the experts, C Robert Kehler, who was commander of the US Strategic Command from 2011-13, said that in his former role he would have followed the president's order to carry out the strike - if it were legal.
He said if he were uncertain about its legality, he would have consulted with his own advisers.
Under certain circumstances, he explained: "I would have said, 'I'm not ready to proceed.'"
One senator, Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, asked: "Then what happens?"
Mr Kehler admitted: "I don't know."
People in the room laughed. But it was a nervous laugh.

OAP

[Barksdale Boy]

Did he mean was the strike legal or the order?

[Onceapilot]

Any US Nuke release Generals care to help with this?

OAP

[MATELO]

I thought the Sec of Def had to jointly authenticate.

Maybes that is what he is getting at, an unauthenticated order from Potus, he may have to go to the Sec of Def (&/or the Joint Chiefs) to confirm it.

[Timelord]

According to wiki:

Only the President can direct the use of nuclear weapons by U.S. armed forces, including the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP). While the President does have unilateral authority as commander-in-chief to order that nuclear weapons be used for any reason at any time, the actual procedures and technical systems in place for authorizing the execution of a launch order requires a secondary confirmation under a two-man rule, as the President's order is subject to secondary confirmation by the Secretary of Defense. If the Secretary of Defense does not concur, then the President may in his sole discretion fire the Secretary. The Secretary of Defense has legal authority to approve the order, but cannot veto it[/I]

[West Coast]

thought the Sec of Def had to jointly authenticate.

Take out SecDef and you have no nuclear retaliatory option, doubtful.

[KenV]

This whole discussion in my opinion is silly to begin with. The President is the only person who can authorize a nuclear response, but does not actually have any fire button. He can't just unilaterally decide to drop one nuke on some random target. Targeting decisions are not made by the president. They're made by the military. And BTW, SIOP has been obsolete for several years. Nuclear targeting and release procedures are currently contained in CONPLAN 8044. The president must select from a menu of several nuclear strike options ("biscuits") contained in "the football" (The Presidential Emergency Satchel) which range from Major, Selected, to Limited. And even then, these are just release orders to the National Military Command Center. The senior officer in the NMCC prepares the actual launch order, which includes which weapons to release and when and includes the codes to unlock the weapons before they can even be prepared for firing. And that order must be validated by a second officer before it can be released. And those orders are subject to the two-man rule all the way down the chain of command right down to the weapon itself.

[Just This Once...]

Yep, lots of real people in the chain.

https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/68464342/turn-your-key-sir.jpg

[sitigeltfel]

This appeals to those who still believe there is a big red button on the presidents desk!

[Just This Once...]

Such wild imagination did lead to PALs being added to US nuclear weapons though; with a nod towards Dr Strangelove.

[Onceapilot]

This whole discussion in my opinion is silly to begin with. The President is the only person who can authorize a nuclear response,


So, no US First Use?

OAP

[Pontius Navigator]

OAP, possibly, however it could also be read to say nuclear response to WMD or massive conventional forces where defensive friendlies are at risk of being annihilated.

Back in the 60s SAC had a warning lamp in the CP for NUDET anywhere in the continental US. Reaction would certainly have been second strike which of course is not to say they would not have prempted.

[Onceapilot]

Thanks PN. :)
I realise that we are not going to be privy to the full details of the POTUS Nuke release proceedures. Interesting though, that some in the USA seem concerned just what their President might, or can, do.:ooh:
Certainly, the reported testimony seems to show some serious unanswered questions. The "what happens then?"..."I don't know...." comments sound incredible. :rolleyes:

OAP

[Lonewolf_50]

OAP, I think you need to review the concept of "civilian control of the military" before you make further comments. So, no US First Use? That's not the topic of the thread. That's you trying to stir up crap.

[Onceapilot]

That's you trying to stir up crap.

You are so right. There is a whole load of CRAP here. Seems to me that if a recently retired top General in the US Nuclear weapon control system cannot explain to a Senate hearing how the release of US Nuclear weapons by Donald Trump is controlled, something is badly wrong. ;)

OAP

[Onceapilot]

Perhaps "will not" is closer to the truth.

Yes, it could be a cover to hide the real situation. :uhoh:

OAP

[Airbubba]

Minuteman crewman Major Harold Hering asked about the validity of a launch order during training in 1973 and ended up needing the number to that truck driving school that Maverick and Goose saw on TV.

From Wikipedia:

Twenty-one years into his Air Force career, while serving as a Minuteman missile crewman and expecting a promotion to lieutenant colonel, he posed the following question during training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in late 1973, at a time when Richard Nixon was president:

"How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?"

The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) specifies that, when the National Command Authority (NCA) issues an order to use nuclear weapons, the order will filter down the chain of command. Per the SIOP, decision-making is the responsibility of the NCA, not of officers lower in the chain of command, who are responsible for executing NCA decisions. To ensure no opportunity for execution by a rogue operator, the two-man rule requires that at each stage, two operators independently verify and agree that the order is valid. In the case of the Minuteman missile, this is done by comparing the authorization code in the launch order against the code in the Sealed Authenticator, a special sealed envelope which holds the code; if both operators agree that the code matches, the launch must be executed.

Hering was pulled from training and, unable to receive a reply to his satisfaction, requested reassignment to different duties. Instead, the Air Force issued an administrative discharge for "failure to demonstrate acceptable qualities of leadership". Hering appealed the discharge, and at the Air Force Board of Inquiry, the Air Force stated that knowing whether or not a launch order is lawful is beyond the executing officer's need to know.

The Board of Inquiry ruled that Hering be discharged from the Air Force. After his discharge, Hering became at first a long-haul trucker, and then a counselor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hering

[Onceapilot]

Airbubba,
Yes, these sort of issues will occur. However, I am referring to confusion at the top of the chain. :eek:
BTW, I believe SIOP was superceeded and, I would expect that someone exerts the intellectual oversight on the top level proceedure? :oh:

OAP

[Heathrow Harry]

"the Air Force stated that knowing whether or not a launch order is lawful is beyond the executing officer's need to know."

I guess that could be argued at a future War Crimes Trial......................

[PhilipG]

Possibly US lawmakers have read the book To Kill the President by Sam Bourne aka Jonathan Freedland.

It starts off with POTUS ordering a strike on China and North Korea, as he was upset about a statement from Pyongyang.

[Fonsini]

This is just my opinion based on my work in process control.

I have never yet seen even a simple system that worked the first time it was tested, and to my knowledge we have never launched a nuclear strike using the SIOP. The number of controls and checkpoints that must necessarily have been built into that launch process to prevent an accidental launch would almost certainly prevent an actual (valid) launch.

Having said that I think it’s a minor miracle that we all made it through the period 1978 to 1990 in one piece.

Again, just my two pennerth.

[VinRouge]

This is just my opinion based on my work in process control.

I have never yet seen even a simple system that worked the first time it was tested, and to my knowledge we have never launched a nuclear strike using the SIOP. The number of controls and checkpoints that must necessarily have been built into that launch process to prevent an accidental launch would almost certainly prevent an actual (valid) launch.

Having said that I think it’s a minor miracle that we all made it through the period 1978 to 1990 in one piece.

Again, just my two pennerth.

Systems such as the Russian's DEAD HAND are pretty terrifying. I understand that we have come close on a number of occasions to accidental release authority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#False_alarm_from_the_Soviet_early_missile_war ning_system?).

Not to mention the Goldsbro Crash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash), which allegedly saw one Mk39 device activate 3 of 4 arming mechanisms during the crash of its B52. The Mk39 has a yield of 4 Megatons. Would have been interesting to see if a detonation within CONUS would have set a retaliatory strike in motion. Absolutely terrifying.

[YellowTom]

I bet accidentally letting a nuke off in your own back yard would be a tough test for the response plans. I wonder where the Trump, NATO and Russian doctrines ask the simple leadership question "I wonder if the problem's actually me because I've misunderstood the facts"!

[gums]

Thanks for the update, KenV.

Last time I saw parts of the SIOP was in 1984. I was Plans weenie for our wing at Hill, so we had an annex or two of the SIOP. We did not have a nuclear commitment, but the big plan had stuff that we needed to support the SIOP.

I am fairly confident that we now have a host of nuke options, most of which are not WW3.

I also can comment on a few things from the Cold War days.

I sat alert in N. Dakota with my trusty air defense VooDoo waiting. It had two nuclear Genie rockets ( not missiles, but real rockets that we aimed with the jet and no guidance on the suckers). I was 23 years old, but a fully-qualified pilot. We had no PAL ( permissive action link) and no Unique Signal Generator panel. We did have "two-man" control, as my back seater had to "consent". The F-106 dudes only had the one pilot so if that sucker was launched, there was no two-man stuff ot anything else. Also be aware that the U.S. Navy nuke planes did not have PAL. Not sure about the SLBM's on the subs.

In the Viper, we had a long process to "pre-arm" the nukes and we were always worried that the damned things would not work after we escaped and evaded all the threats and did not get blinded by another guy's nuke. Strange and terrifying times, my friends.

The actual arming process was changed after Goldsboro and the Spanish incident. We had the PAL, and it was coded to the actual bomb, and we had to enter the code after other security procedures. Then we had the USG ( unique signal generator), which was actually a sobriety test. Basically, a sequence of switches/keystrokes that meant you really, really intended to drop/launch the nuke. So that was "pre-arm", not "arming". Each nuke has a profile that must be achieved for it to "arm" or the sucker will not go off. So in my Viper I could not loft a B61 from 5 or 6 miles way like the 'vark could, or do an over-the-shoulder like the Navy A-7's could do. I had to fly over the tgt and have that stupid parachute and also make sure the bomb went up thru a change of altitude and come back down sensing a change and so forth.

Oh well, glad those days are over.

Gums recalls....

[Cazalet33]

The BBC's Katty Kay writes:

The top nuclear commander in the US says he would resist any "illegal" presidential order to launch a strike.

Air Force Gen John Hyten, said as head of the US Strategic Command he provided advice to a president and expected that a legal alternative would be found.

His comments come just days after US senators discussed a president's authority to launch a nuclear attack.

Some of them expressed concern that President Donald Trump might irresponsibly order such a strike.

Others though said a president must have the authority to act without meddling from lawyers. It was the first such hearing in more than 40 years.

In August, Mr Trump vowed to unleash "fire and fury like the world has never seen" on North Korea if it continued to expand its atomic weapons programme and threaten America.

Last month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Republican chairman, Senator Bob Corker, accused the president of setting the US "on a path to World War Three".

Speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, Gen Hyten said: "We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility, how do you not think about it?"

"I provide advice to the president, he will tell me what to do," he said.

"And if it's illegal, guess what's going to happen? I'm going to say: 'Mr President, that's illegal.' And guess what he's going to do? He's going to say, 'What would be legal?' And we'll come up with options, of a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that's the way it works.

"It's not that complicated," Gen Hyten added.

He also added: "If you execute an unlawful order, you will go to jail. You could go to jail for the rest of your life."

[Onceapilot]

Quote:
Gen Hyten said: "We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility, how do you not think about it?"

"It's not that complicated," Gen Hyten added.
End Quote.

Sorry, these guys are deluding us or themselves. There is little doubt that, barring some crazy pre-considered no-no's, a proportional Presidential Nuke release command will be actioned against any viable threat that POTUS deems necessary. The obfuscation is possibly to deceive domestic public opinion.

OAP

[charliegolf]

Quote:
Gen Hyten said: "We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility, how do you not think about it?"

"It's not that complicated," Gen Hyten added.
End Quote.

The obfuscation is possibly to deceive domestic public opinion.

OAP

Or to acknowledge that, for the first time, the current C in C is a little short on the smarts needed to make those decisions.

Not meant as a cheap shot- it remains my genuine opinion that he's really not very clever...

CG