The Donald and the Nuclear V: The Senate Strikes Back

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

The French debate, I think, by contrast, is very straightforward, which is, if you attack our strategic forces, we will nuke the shit out of you. You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:31

And I'm Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafiq Career Recenser for the Middle East.

Jeffrey 0:37

How you doing, Aaron?

Aaron 0:39

I'm doing well. I'm watching my son again today because my wife spends the day in New York City. New York City? That's right. So she's gone north while I'm down south here. So if you hear a cartoon in the background or a junior fellow, Oliver M. Ray Stein, you know why. He's doing a little research. You know, I always feel guilty turning the TV on, but when you have a podcast to do, you know, you need silence for at least 30 minutes.

So we make exceptions.

Jeffrey 1:09

I'm a parent. I don't judge. You know who else has been doing some research?

Aaron 1:13

Who? Liddle Bob Corker. That's right. The president's main nemesis decided to take up a question that we've talked about here on the pod, which is the ability to launch nuclear weapons.

Jeffrey 1:26

Yeah, you know, I actually don't think that Bob Corker is fundamentally interested in altering our nuclear launch procedures, but I think Bob Corker is also delighted to have a congressional hearing on how insane the president might be.

Aaron 1:42

Yeah, I mean, what was the last time they held a hearing on this? I mean, I forgot. Is it the 1976 or 1978? I mean, it's one of those two years. I mean, this is the mid-1970s. And nobody really thought about this, again, until 2016, 2017.

Jeffrey 1:55

Yeah, I actually didn't know that there were hearings on this specific issue. I mean, I know in the 1970s, in the wake of Vietnam, we had a really big debate in the country about how the president's commander-in-chief power interacts with Congress's power to declare war. We have the War Powers Resolution and a whole bunch of interesting and actually, I think, sort of terrible legislation that comes out of that period.

But yeah, not since heavily intoxicated Richard Nixon had his finger on the button have we truly begun to worry about this problem. If it's a problem at all. I mean, it's this unnatural or this bizarre state of affairs where one human being can, with a proverbial push of a button, order up the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Aaron 2:45

Yeah, and I think people were, I guess, lackadaisical or just didn't really care about this. A, because the process remains a mystery to most people. And B, and more importantly, the process is as important as the person overseeing that process. And if you look at opinion polls, most Americans don't trust Donald Trump, especially when he tweets like he does.

Jeffrey 3:06

Right. So, you know... I think the subtext of this hearing isn't really about nuclear weapons. It's about the tiny little finger that's on that particular proverbial button. But nonetheless, we had a hearing. And the hearing, no surprises there, featured three very centrist witnesses, all of whom all of whom made the argument that it would be better to leave well enough alone. the three witnesses were Peter Fever.

General Kaler, who actually I thought was a very, very nice or a very effective commander of strategic command and somebody I've worked with a little bit through Scott Sagan at Stanford. And then the Democratic witness was Brian McKeon, who was a longtime congressional aide who finished up as, was he deputy undersecretary of defense for policy? Or did he was he actually undersecretary of defense for policy at the very end?

Aaron 4:09

I don't remember offhand. You would think I would know. But the thing is, is that they were also talking about the Lou Markey bill. You know, and that was the other thing in the room. I mean, besides the indirect attack on the president as well was this movement in Congress to try and get congressional authorities or give Congress a role in the launch procedures.

Jeffrey 4:33

Right. I mean, I think this is a case where, you know, the Lou Markey bill, which, to be clear, would not strip the president of the ability to use nuclear weapons on his or her sole authority. It would allow the president to retain that authority. It would just, for some scenarios in which the United States was contemplating the first use of nuclear weapons, would require the president to come get an authorization.

Aaron 5:03

And I think all three witnesses didn't like this idea.

Jeffrey 5:08

Yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised. I mean, frankly, when you and I first heard it, we didn't particularly like the idea. And I think it's probably worth talking about why in isolation from Donald Trump, because, you know, I'm in this weird position. I don't know if you feel the same way, Aaron. I think that our nuclear policies in this regard Are a little bit crazy.

But they're not random and they're not absurd. I mean, they reflect a pretty consistent bipartisan consensus about how to approach this problem. And so it's not surprising to me that discomfort with our current chief executive notwithstanding, that most people would still counsel that we leave well enough alone. And so we, I think, we're both... Skeptical of the particular solution proposed.

But certainly in my case, I think I'm, I'm more open to the argument behind the, the, the Lou Markey bill, which is that, that this situation is a, is a little bit loony tunes.

Aaron 6:11

Yeah, I think that's right. And, It's hard to separate the person in the office from the process, even if I think that the process is well thought out and ultimately reflects... It's hard for me to separate because this really is ultimately a thought process on the president, even if I think... The processes put in place reflect some really in-depth thinking about scenario planning.

Does that make sense? Even if that scenario planning is where I think you get Looney Tunes.

Jeffrey 6:46

Right, well... I mean, we should talk for a second about why things are the way they are. But, you know, I think we should be clear. The reason Bob Corker had this hearing, I think, is a small measure of revenge against Trump. I mean, it just ensures a news cycle where we talk about how crazy Trump is.

And I think, you know, the president having baited Bob Corker about his height is getting this news cycle as payback.

Aaron 7:16

Yeah, no, absolutely. But what it also shows, something that we've talked about in the podcast before, is that people don't know how this process actually works. And so people are surprised that basically it's just the president that needs to give this order and the military will follow that order.

Jeffrey 7:36

Yeah, I mean, living here in California, I get to have a lot of conversations with people who are not national security elite types, which is great. First of all, it's nice to have friends who don't do the same thing that I do. You know, my advice to D.C. people is you should try it. It's wonderful. But I do think there is a pretty common view, which we have talked about on this podcast before, that it takes two votes, the president and someone else, to order a nuclear strike.

And that's just false. And, you know, I mean, my favorite example of this is, I don't know if you're familiar with the movie The Dead Zone starring Christopher Walken. It's a Stephen King novel that was turned into a movie. Yeah. There's actually a Trump like character who's running for president. It's this guy is named Greg Stilson, but he's played by Martin Sheen.

And and in the dead zone would later go on to be president. Exactly right. He's he's he's he's Jed Bartlett in the West Wing. Right. Which is what makes this so wonderful because the whole movie revolves around the fact that Stillson, who is this Trump-like demagogue, is going to get elected and he's going to start a nuclear war.

And so the movie is about preventing that from happening. But the dramatic scene, which I totally recommend, is Martin Sheen as Greg Stillson with his hand on some kind of, you know, 80s imaginary authentication system. Trying to get his, I guess it's secretary of state might, it might've been the secretary of defense in the story, just some other official to provide the second vote.

And as you know, it's a very dramatic I mean, it's also awesome cause it's like coked out Martin Sheen from the 1980s. So you get to see Jed Bartlett you know, suffering cocaine psychosis, ordering a nuclear war. I mean, I've always wanted to like stitch together some West wing episode that like ends with ends with that scene.

Right. But that's not how it happens. That's not right.

Aaron 9:43

I think that scene's played out in a lot of movies, because I can't remember the exact film, and I should, but there's always this idea that you need a second vote. And you sit around the table, and it's tense, and the president looks at his secretary of defense and asks for support.

Jeffrey 10:03

Well, you know, we made a timeline for the most demanding scenario, a launch under attack where the Russians have fired all of their land-based missiles and our land-based missiles. And the president has, you know, the very narrow window of only a few minutes to decide whether to retaliate or not. And the actual, the inspiration for that was film because it always made us crazy that when we would plot out this timeline, the president has something like two minutes to make the decision.

But that's a commercial. You know, the dramatic requirements have that argument go on for, like, in a movie, like, you know, 30 minutes. And it's like, no, no, no, the nuclear war is over by the end of this episode. Like, it's done.

Aaron 10:51

Air Force One is circling over wreckage.

Jeffrey 10:54

Yeah, I mean, if the president sits there and argues for the length of time between two commercial breaks, like... The nuclear war has done and happened. So you can't really do that, right? So I, you know, I mean, when we did these, we did some meetings in L.A. and New York with TV writers. I mean, one of the things I would have liked to see them do is, like, actually do one of these shows in real time.

Aaron 11:18

Yeah. I mean, because it's about 22 minutes.

Jeffrey 11:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you could launch, you could do the whole thing in real time. And I think the reality is that the president's got to make that decision really, really quickly. Now, this gets to my, this is the part that I am sympathetic to. Which is that, you know, so we have the, the Congress has the power to declare war, but the president is the commander in chief and the constitution you know, the somebody who like spends a lot of time looking at foreign governments.

I'm not somebody who thinks the U S constitution is especially good or especially bad. You know, I don't have this kind of like weird Ted Cruz, like admiration for it. Like whatever. It's a piece of paper. It's a nice piece of paper, a piece of white sheepskin or something. Right.

Aaron 12:12

Yeah. What's that?

Jeffrey 12:14

Valenum? What's that? What's the... What's that called? Velium. Velium.

Aaron 12:20

Yeah, there we go. It's kind of my drop in there, Scott. Scott's on mute for the listeners because he has contractor work, but he dropped that one into our chat box.

Jeffrey 12:26

Yeah. You know, the Constitution doesn't fundamentally resolve this problem of how the president's commander in chief power interacts with Congress's war power. And so we have established this system, which really comes about in 1970s after Vietnam, where Congress passed the War Powers Act where the president has this kind of limited window in which he or she can exercise the use of force as the commander in chief.

And then it sort of asserted that by the end of that window, he or she needs to come back to Congress. Except, first of all, like that's totally useless in a nuclear war, right? Yeah. I mean, it's all over by then. But then on top of that, the executive has always asserted that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional and that the commander in chief power is nearly absolute.

And frankly, you know, that's closer to my view. You know, like if you choose to give the commander in chief nuclear weapons in the first place, you kind of don't get to complain about how the commander in chief uses them. And this is like my bigger objection, even though I agree kind of with the underlying debate or the underlying criticism that this situation is crazy.

The situation isn't... It's not crazy because we don't have the optimum launch procedure. It's crazy because nuclear weapons are crazy.

Aaron 13:56

Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's vellum, by the way. I added an extra I there. But... That's exactly right. And so the broader question isn't about the procedure. It's about the idea of how destructive these weapons are. And the ideas and some of the processes, I would argue, that's crazy, is conceptualizing how to use them. Use them to fight a war, which is what goes on a lot in these plannings.

It's not so much that these things are awful and should never be used. It's scenarios under which they could be used to try and win something.

Jeffrey 14:32

Yeah, and so I think this is a nice opportunity to talk about the things that McKeon and Kaler and others said, because I think they were all uncomfortable with Marky Lou. And it's, I think, worth looking at the kinds of objections they raised. Like, so, for example, General Kaler, you know, said that the military doesn't blindly follow order, and that's true of nuclear orders as well.

Aaron 14:58

But that's... Chatham House thing with somebody else who's involved in this last night and said that made him uncomfortable. And he was in a position to follow this order.

Jeffrey 15:15

I am shocked that General Kaler said that. Because it's not well yeah well yes well I've had other conversations with General Kaler because actually I participated in a project with General Kaler that Scott Sagan ran out of Stanford about ethics and war and Scott and I wrote a paper on ethics and nuclear targeting and General Kaler who is a lovely man and I would have him as the US commander of strategic command you know six days a week and twice on Sundays and He was concerned about good order and discipline in those situations.

And so while I see him saying, on the one hand, that the military doesn't blindly follow orders, which is true, I also would not expect a mutiny. In the event that the president gave the order to use nuclear weapons. And frankly, like, I think General Kaler is a lovely human being. I believe that if he were commander of strategic command, and Donald Trump were the president, and Donald Trump gave him the order to use nuclear weapons, I believe General Kaler would follow those orders.

And I don't think there's anything disreputable about that.

Aaron 16:38

You know, I just...

Jeffrey 16:40

I just don't... I just... Do not think it is either likely that we could count on a mutiny, and I'm not sure as a matter of policy it's a good idea to place that responsibility on the military.

Aaron 16:57

Or ask for one, because all of a sudden you're opening yourselves up to a whole set of other questions. Is it at the height of tensions you could have the senior leadership of the U.S. military revolt against its commander-in-chief, no matter who that is? Yeah. And this always raises the question, though, I mean, because if you talk about process, like, we don't think that this is a failure of process.

We think this is a failure of giving, of the idea of nuclear weapons and the destructive power. But what about trying to get to that dead zone scenario where you do give a second person, somebody in the room. So maybe you don't do something like the Lou Markey bill, but you do try and democratize the process.

Jeffrey 17:42

Yeah. So, I mean, I have three, I have three policy recommendations for reducing the danger of nuclear weapons. And they are in no particular order. One, Don't elect homicidal lunatics president of the United States. Well, that's...

Aaron 18:02

Yes. Maybe this should be more in the discourse within these debates and stuff like that is real sound questioning within the media and elsewhere about the temperament of the president under high times of stress. I mean, we never really talk about that. But if we accept...

Jeffrey 18:21

That the electoral process may sometimes produce adverse outcomes from a nuclear stability perspective, I would recommend two other things. One is, regardless of what Congress does or does not do, it would be, I think, a helpful thing if, as a result of pressure from Congress, the executive were to require a second vote. There's nothing that stops the president from creating a chain of command that requires the Secretary of Defense to sign off.

It's this silly thing in the movie, but you could require that. Maybe it doesn't have to be the Secretary of Defense. I think it should be at least a Senate-confirmed position.

Aaron 19:10

But what if they split? Then you don't use the nuclear weapons. Even at 1-1, don't you need three in that scenario?

Jeffrey 19:18

No, I think if it's 1-1, you don't launch. I mean, look, you're ultimately picking your poison. You've got type 1 and type 2 errors for people who like statistics. There are cases where you launch and you wish you didn't, and there are cases when you don't launch and you wish you did. And I'm willing to accept a few cases of we don't launch and we wish we did in exchange for no cases of we launch and we wish we didn't.

Aaron 19:48

Well, how would this work conceptually? What if they're not in the same place because of this time constraint? What if they can't get each other on the phone?

Jeffrey 19:56

Well, this will get to my second point, but we don't have to impose this time constraint on them. And so that's my second point, and we'll talk about that. But, you know, look, the way the football works is the president authenticates the order through the National Military Command Center. I would simply require, say, the Secretary of Defense to also authenticate the order.

And so maybe you have two footballs. You know, I mean, you know, the worst case scenario, I think that I can imagine is the two of them are physically separated and the president knows about an attack and the Secretary of Defense doesn't know about an attack. But I'm not sure how that's possible because you're going to have the same underlying system that's going to send out the alerts and they're going to ring them both.

And, you know, I mean, I don't know what the contact point of failure for the president is. I mean, you know, he's taken a dump. The aide can still rush in. He's, you know, you know, unless he's tweeting, right? Molesting a kitten. The aide can still rush in. I don't I don't know. So I think the executive could, without raising any of these complicated constitutional questions about how the power to declare war interacts with the commander-in-chief's war power, I mean the commander-in-chief power, could just simply say, in order to head off this discussion, you know, it should take two votes.

So that's one thing you could do. But the bigger thing, and this gets to your point about stress, is why do we have a launch-under-attack posture at all? You know, like... For most countries, that's from most countries, I don't know. For Britain, it's not most countries, that's one other country. But for the United Kingdom, they have only nuclear weapons at sea.

And they simply plan to ride out and attack. And if you nuke the British, you are expected to believe that, you know, out of the smoldering rubble with a stiff upper lip, someone will give that order. And or, you know, the commander of the submarine in checking back in and realizing that the United Kingdom is a smoldering ruin.

We'll go ahead and and execute the retaliation. And frankly speaking, this gets to a bigger conversation. Maybe maybe we'll exceed the value of this pod. That is a really unacceptable argument in the American political system where we're obsessed with credibility. I observe this is not a discussion in the United Kingdom and France, and we can talk about why there's that difference, but we don't have to require the president to make a decision in two minutes.

To defend poor George W. Bush, the example I always give is, recall on the day of the 9-11 attacks, Andy Card whispers into his ear, Mr. President, America is under attack, and Bush decides to calmly sit in that elementary school classroom while the pet goat is being read, while he gathers his thoughts. He decides he doesn't want to jump up and run out of the room and create a giant panic.

Which I actually agree with when you read that. I think George Bush made the right decision.

Aaron 23:25

Yes. He made the right decision.

Jeffrey 23:26

Yes, he was pilloried for it, particularly in that terrible Michael Moore movie. But that's what I want.

Aaron 23:33

Michael Moore movie is good. Can we say that?

Jeffrey 23:37

I mean, yeah, I mean, but he's right. Like I want the executive to be a calm and deliberative presence when everybody else is panicking. And when I look at that and I say, but the way he acted is inconsistent with launch under attack. Then we should get rid of launch under attack, not require the president to jump up like his hair is on fire and act like an idiot.

Because there are false alarms, there are mistakes. Like, this is the one guy in the room who needs to be calm. And so, you know, we often talk about how, like, launch under attack is an option for the president. You know, like, well, you have to give the president all the options. But in fact, it takes away options because it forces him or her to act in a very specific way.

And I think the real option that the president needs is the option to take his or her time. And we could construct our forces and posture them in such a way that we plan to ride out an attack. And I'm not terribly worried about the credibility problem.

Aaron 24:40

So you're advocating a more British-style approach, or at least trying to meld those two approaches built around the difference in the U.S. force posture. Yeah, well, it's actually— Trying to lengthen the time for the president to make a decision, and you don't necessarily have to impose a time constraint on him or her, because that is reflective of this launch-under-attack posture.

Jeffrey 25:03

Yeah, and actually, I think that it's really the French approach. Because I think in the United States we have this idea that if you don't do the retaliation immediately, then maybe you won't do it. Or if they just start sinking our submarines and no Americans are killed, the president won't do it. And what we do in America is we, in our defense community, we come up with all these incredibly complicated scenarios, right?

In which it seems like we're trying to talk ourselves into using nuclear weapons. Like, I feel like the subtext of the American debate about credibility is, we all know this is crazy, we all know we will never use these weapons, and we're trying to talk ourselves into it. The French debate, I think, by contrast, is very straightforward, which is, if you attack our strategic forces, we will nuke the shit out of you.

And it's really interesting. You should try to have one of these debates in France. Like, you should try to, like, engage in, like, the graduate school seminar. Like, well, what if the only casualties were the sailors and, you know, no actual French people on land were killed? And they will just be like, we will nuke the shit out of you.

You know, there is no... There is no hint of doubt or second guessing, which to me is actually far more credible than the kind of bad philosophy seminar approach that we take. I mean, I think I've said it before, but it's my favorite quote from Therese Delpeche, who, you know, was asked about missile defense. And, you know, she said, you know, when I was a child, the cowboy shot the Indian, not the arrow.

Right. Just like, if you shoot an arrow at me, I'm going to kill you. Like, you know, and I think it's more credible. So to go back to, like, what that means for the Lou Markey bill, it is of a piece of our broader debate where we look at this process and we say, like, this is crazy.

The president can just go ahead and order up a nuclear strike and nobody can stop him. And that's true. It is crazy. But To me, the answers are not complicated. They're simple. Like, well, maybe the answer is you don't like nuclear weapons and you don't think any president should have them and have that authority. Like, I think that's a reasonable opinion to have.

Or if you do like nuclear weapons and you do believe in deterrence, then just believe in deterrence, right? Don't get obsessed with all these little details. Like, well, we have to be able to, you know, launch in this condition. Like, just, you have a bunch of nuclear weapons on submarines and have confidence that they will survive. And if they do survive, that the captains will do their duty.

It's actually, to me, not more complicated than that. So I would maybe require a second vote. I would certainly get rid of launch under attack. And I would work energetically to get rid of nuclear weapons. I'm not sure I'm going to need a congressional declaration of war to launch a nuclear first strike.

Aaron 28:01

Yeah, and the reliance on... If it's determined that cities are smoldering and you trust the commanders to do their job, goes exactly against a lot of the things that we hear as what should be a check on Trump, which is the mutiny discussion we just had. That's why you don't want to have the mutiny discussion, because that makes you less, I hate the word, that makes this whole process less credible.

Jeffrey 28:31

Yeah, well, I mean, I know you hate the credibility term, but I mean... I hate the credibility term and the way it's used in Washington. That's right. That's exactly what I was going to say. I mean, the way it's used in Washington is to reinforce an inherently uncredible or incredible approach.

Aaron 28:48

Yeah. Like... You know, it's American resolve. Otherwise, people won't take us seriously.

Jeffrey 28:54

And, you know, like... I don't know. Do you know the... My favorite example is The Economist had a wonderful summary of this research on these simple games where you give two parties a certain amount of money and the deal is one party gets to divide it and the other party decides whether to accept the division or refuse it.

If they accept the division, then both parties get the agreed amount. If that person refuses the division, no one gets anything. And it's wonderful because it's exactly like nuclear deterrence in this sense where, rationally speaking, the party at the end should always accept the split no matter what because something is always better than nothing. And that's precisely how Americans stress about nuclear deterrence.

It's like never in our interest to reject the split. It's never in our interest to start the nuclear war. And we're trying to come up with some logical reason that we can coerce ourselves into getting an equitable split. But the actual solution, which is how real human beings do it, and it's especially true of men, Is if you get beyond 60-40, most people, it's certainly among men, there's a gender difference here, I think, reject it, even though it's irrational.

It's like, why? Because f*** you, that's why. And, you know, the underlying, I mean, the underlying behavioral explanation is that Like, why do you care about money in the first place, right? And, and the answer is and you know, people who are like into evolution make, make this argument as an evolutionary argument. I'm not, not sure how persuasive I find that, but the argument they make is money is a means to an end, and that end are reproductive opportunities. And if you're the kind of guy who takes the nine, the low end of the 90/10 split, the, the, the 10 bucks isn't getting you laid, right?

Aaron 31:04

Unless you've got good game.

Jeffrey 31:06

Yeah, well, but the point is you don't have good game because you're the kind of guy who takes the low end of 90-10 split.

Aaron 31:10

Right, that's right.

Jeffrey 31:13

And, like, it's a little bit funny, but I do think that nuclear deterrence presents the same kind of game-theoretic challenge, which is it's very hard to imagine a situation where it's in our interest to have a nuclear war. And so like the person on the receiving end of the 90-10 split, we're trying to find some solution. But there is no rational solution.

The solution is irrationality. The solution is like, no, if you do that to me, I will nuke you. You can't talk yourself into it. It's not going to be a reasoned conversation. And so, you know, again, to go back to Lou Markey... You know, I think the reason that you see the three witnesses all saying like, well, you know, you can't really change the command and control structure.

You know, that's a function of this American debate that is predicated on the idea that we have to have this particular approach. Otherwise, people won't find it credible. I think if you're going to give the president nuclear weapons, we can posture them in such a way that solves most of these problems, and the way you solve the credibility problem is by being credible.

You know, it's not a logical thing. It just is. So I appreciate Lou Markey for bringing up the issue, and I'm always pleased when little Bob Corker gets his tiny revenge.

Aaron 32:45

Well, we should thank Donald Trump, because without him, nobody would be talking about this. He is a one-man campaign for nuclear disarmament.

Jeffrey 32:52

Yeah, he's a one-man campaign for nuclear disarmament.

Aaron 32:55

Yeah, that's right. He will do more to advance that cause than anybody else that comes before him.

Jeffrey 33:01

Yeah.

Aaron 33:01

So Scott's getting his apartment worked on. Do you want to tell us about the Slack channel? I've been spending a lot of time in the Slack channel. And... You know, it's always a fun conversation. There's a whole bunch of different threads where you can talk about different arms control, disarmament, nonproliferation related topics. And everybody in there is knowledgeable.

And it's a good way to bounce ideas off people and learn a whole bunch of stuff. So for $5 a month, you can join and become a member and have access to the Slack channel. And if you're a student, it's just $3 to a month. Just go to patreon.acwpod.

Jeffrey 33:40

Yeah, I was just in there the other day. It's overwhelming how much stuff there is. I try to jump in. I try to get involved in threads, but it's like being at a very loud, very noisy party where everybody is having a ton of fun. Yeah, that's a good thing. Yeah. No, it is. And only three bucks if you're a student.

Yeah.

Aaron 34:01

All right, Aaron. Thank you for joining me. Always a pleasure.

Jeffrey 34:05

And thank you for listening.