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Aug. 1, 2024
Editor, The News-Gazette: In May, the U.S. Department of Defense maintained a stockpile of approximately 3,708 nuclear warheads for delivery by ballistic missiles and aircraft. Around 1,770 warheads are currently deployed.
The U.S. President has sole authority to authorize the use of these nuclear weapons. This authority is inherent in his Constitutional role as commander in chief. The president can seek counsel from his military advisors; those advisors are then required to implement the orders authorizing their use. But, as Gen. John Hyten, then the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, noted, his job is to give advice, while the authority to order a launch lies solely with the president.
While the horrors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings have been erased from memory, the numbers and destructive power of nuclear weapons have increased exponentially. In 1983, after viewing “The Day After,” a film portraying the horrors of a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan charged his administration with developing stronger diplomatic ties with Soviet colleagues, securing disarmament summits, and installing a hotline between the Oval Office and the Kremlin.
The prospect of former President Trump’s hand on the nuclear trigger is alarming. As president, he demonstrated psychotic reactions to critical issues including the use of these weapons. In contrast to President Reagan, Trump’s actions reflected little respect for their danger to civilization. His bellicose threats to China caused General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to secretly reassure his alarmed Chinese counterparts that the U.S. was not about to attack. Should Trump become personally offended by an adversary’s actions or receive information from ill-informed advisors, no one can stop him from initiating a nuclear holocaust. FRANK SETTLE Lexington
