Uh, What About The Nuclear Codes?

A befuddled Joe Biden at the CNN debate, June 27, 2024

Swarms of “Democratic insiders” have been undergoing what they profess to be a sudden and “shocking” epiphany about Joe Biden’s diminished mental capacity. They were totally blown away by the disastrous debate performance last week, and are now scrambling to devise a frantic scheme to somehow replace Biden with one of their preferred alternatives. “Too much is at stake,” “Democracy is on the line,” yadda yadda yadda.

Gently asked for his take on Biden’s ability to carry out his basic presidential duties, Jamie Raskin, the self-righteous Maryland Democratic congressman, revealed what he firmly believes to be the singular, overriding task he and his fellow “insiders” must now grapple with: “Everybody is asking one question within the Democratic Party,” Raskin announced. “How do we defeat Donald Trump?”

Chiming in with the same bold sentiment was Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), who proclaimed: “My north star in this process is going to be how do we ensure Donald Trump does not get back to the Oval Office. That’s going to be my north star. And everything else is subordinate to that.”

Alright… it’s all well and good that Democrats want to beat Trump. Nobody is surprised that Democrats really, really want to beat Trump, because they think all kinds of hallucinatory tyrannies will befall the Nation and Our Democracy™ if Trump gets in and does another round of corporate tax cuts or something. They tremble every night in their beds imagining Trump enacting the policy agenda of the private equity tycoons who are once again funding his campaign. It’s all just so unbearably terrifying for these Dems. So of course they want to make absolutely certain that the Democratic Standard Bearer is fully equipped to defeat Trump and his scary Heritage Foundation shock troops.

But, uh, how about the ability of the CURRENT PRESIDENT to perform the basic duties of his office — RIGHT NOW, much less in four and a half years from now, when he’ll be 86 years old? Gerry Connolly says all other considerations are “subordinate” to the paramount imperative of defeating Trump. Really? Do any of these “alarmed” and “concerned” Dems ever give a passing thought to the baseline competency of Biden, in his rapidly advancing state of cognitive decrepitude, as the person with sole authority over the US nuclear launch codes?

The nuclear command is structured unlike any other branch of US military power. If a president orders an invasion somewhere, there are Generals, Admirals, as well as civilian officials like the Defense Secretary who are necessarily involved in facets of the decision-making and practical implementation. With the nuclear arsenal, the president simply issues a one-man order to fire off the apocalyptic missiles from the ground, air, or sea-based launchers, and then that order, at least in theory, must be executed immediately by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) officers who have no subsequent discretionary authority. (It’s the head of STRATCOM who alerts the president of an incoming attack, presents him with options, and then executes whatever order he may give.) Of course, no one knows how this process would actually work in practice. Perhaps some lower-level officer could break the chain of command and defy orders. But the chain of command is what it is.

In 2017, a group of Congressional Democrats tried to pass a legislative curtailment of the president’s nuclear-launch power, because they were of course inordinately troubled that this power resided with Trump. But of course it never went anywhere. At the time, these Dems were very clear-eyed about the implications of this awesome power when the former Apprentice host possessed it:

The President has the sole authority to authorize the use of nuclear weapons, an order which military officers of the United States must carry out in accordance with their obligations under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Given its exclusive power under the Constitution to declare war, Congress must provide meaningful checks and balances to the President’s sole authority to authorize the use of a nuclear weapon.

Someone should really track down Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), who introduced a version of the bill in 2017 because, they said, doing so was “more urgent than ever now that President Donald Trump has the power to launch a nuclear war at a moment’s notice.” OK, fine, I don’t even necessarily dispute the characterization of Trump (although it should be said that in 2016, hysteria swelled that Trump would instantly get into office and start raining down nuclear warheads on every world leader who sent a rude tweet at him). What I’d really like to know is what synopsis Markey and Lieu would give of that power being currently wielded by Joe Biden, who gravely struggles to complete an extemporaneous sentence. Is anyone else curious whether Markey and Lieu would have sublime confidence in Biden continuing to retain this power when he’s AGE 86, which is what Biden would be if he wins the second term that he’s ostensibly running for (at least as of today). 

In fairness to Markey and a handful of other Senate Dems, including Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tina Smith (D-MN), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), they did re-introduce another version of the legislation in 2023. But the fearful precedent cited in their press release was Richard Nixon allegedly ordering a nuclear reprisal in 1969 when he was drunk. (The circumstances around that alleged incident are still fuzzy.) So, um, how about mumbling Grandpa Joe? Any “concerns” there?

I would love to ask any of these Dems if they could seriously contend, with a straight face, that they’d have no issue at all with a scenario in which 86-year-old Biden (if he’s even still partially sentient at that point) has to get rustled out of bed at 3am and make the most high-intensity, high-stress decision that any person on Earth could possibly ever have to make, within approximately 6 to 10 minutes. The decision would be irreversible. Obviously, it requires absolute maximum mental dexterity and information-processing. And it would ultimately fall to no one else but Biden. Maybe he could get wise counselors like Jake Sullivan or Tony Blinken on the phone for 30 seconds of consultation — but the “sole authority” rests in his hands, and his hands alone. 

I strongly recommend this Harper’s article for a thorough explanation of the grisly mechanical details:

Unless the principal command center has been knocked out, once the president gives his order the ­STRATCOM commander has no role in actually executing the nuclear strike. He sees a presidential launch order at the same time as the other command centers that execute it.

As a May 2024 Congressional Research Service brief also helpfully summarized and re-affirmed, “the US President has sole authority to authorize the use of US 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 transmit and implement the orders authorizing nuclear use.” How reassuring!

The brief goes on: “Given that some time would be needed for mechanical or administrative steps, analysts estimate that the President would have less than 10 minutes to absorb the information, review his options, and make his decision.” 

Again, some estimates put it at as little as six minutes. It’s hard to say, because we don’t have any test cases of how much decision-making time presidents might have when they’re thrust into this life-or-death annihilation scenario.

Joe Biden himself has said — at a fundraiser, naturally — that the nuclear risk arising from the Ukraine war was the most perilous since the Cuban Missile Crisis. That was back in October 2022 — who knows what his mumbled estimate would be now, especially after the May 2024 authorization he gave to unleash US weaponry for cross-border strikes into a still-indeterminate expanse of Russian territory. The rolling fiasco in Israel portends additional calamity, with warnings being signaled that a general war with Hezbollah in Lebanon could commence sometime in the next several weeks. China is being increasingly encircled with US firepower, and who’s to say what could happen vis-a-vis Taiwan at a moment’s notice.

Any final decision in the most hellish of conditions could ultimately come down to a six minute colloquy between a meagerly cognizant Joe Biden and Gen. Anthony J. Cotton, the STRATCOM commander. This should be a hair-raising prospect even if the president was 45 years old and could ace the toughest mental acuity test. Where does Biden currently fall on that spectrum of reliable cognition? Even if he were to withdraw from his re-election campaign tomorrow (unlikely) he would still be Constitutionally entitled to another 6+ months in office as president, barring impeachment/removal, resignation, invocation of the 25th amendment (though the procedures on that are still ill-defined), or… death.

If it’s really true that Biden has deteriorated at such an accelerated pace in only just the past several months, right under the “shocked” noses of Democratic officials who were supremely confident in his abilities up until last week’s traumatic debate, wouldn’t we expect that deterioration to continue accelerating — at a progressively rapid pace? If he can’t run his campaign now, as many Dem insiders have fretted, what’s the argument that he can continue to govern for the next 6+ months, particularly under the highest of intensity circumstances? These anguished Dems are aware that there are several hot wars currently raging in which Biden plays a central operational role, right? In the case of Ukraine, perhaps they’re not aware, since they still seem to believe that’s going swimmingly well — despite the uninterrupted nuclear brinksmanship. Maybe they should google around for the latest Hezbollah news to concentrate their minds.

In conclusion, if these “alarmed” and “concerned” Democratic elites are restricting their “alarm” and “concern” to literally nothing but Biden’s ability to beat Trump, you can write them off as shallow self-serving hucksters who really ought to be nowhere near political power. They’re worried about the self-immolation of Biden only insofar as it could bring forth an undesirable electoral outcome — not because it could end up immolating humanity.