THE DANGER OF A DERANGED TRUMP on the nuclear button

President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, traded threats this week about the size, location and potency of their “nuclear buttons.”

The image of a leader with a finger on a button — a trigger capable of launching a world-ending strike — has for decades symbolized the speed with which a nuclear weapon could be launched, and the unchecked power of the person doing the pushing.

A military aide traveling with President Trump in December carried the so-called nuclear football as he walked toward Marine One, the president’s helicopter.Credit...Mark Wilson/Getty Images
What’s the deal with the button?
William Safire, the former New York Times columnist and presidential speechwriter, tracked the origin of the phrase “finger on the button” to panic buttons found in World War II-era bombers. A pilot could ring a bell to signal that other crew members should jump from the plane because it had been damaged extensively. But the buttons were often triggered prematurely or unnecessarily by jittery pilots.
The expression is commonly used to mean “ready to launch an atomic war,” but the writer added in “Safire’s Political Dictionary” that it is also a “scare phrase used in attacking candidates” during presidential elections.
President Lyndon B. Johnson told Barry M. Goldwater, his Republican opponent in 1964, that a leader must “do anything that is honorable to avoid pulling that trigger, mashing that button that will blow up the world.”
Richard M. Nixon told advisers during the Vietnam War that he wanted the North Vietnamese to believe he was an unpredictable “madman” who could not be restrained “when he’s angry, and he has his hand on the nuclear button.”
During the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton said of her opponent, “Trump shouldn’t have his finger on the button, or his hands on our economy.”


Trump Threatens North Korea With ‘Fire and Fury’

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” President Trump said after the isolated nuclear-armed country criticized the United States earlier in the day.CreditCredit...Al Drago for The New York Times
How would President Trump launch an attack?
Each nuclear-capable country has its own system for launching a strike, but most rely on the head of government first confirming his or her identity and then authorizing an attack.






Despite Mr. Trump’s tweet that he has a “much bigger & more powerful” button than Mr. Kim, the fact is, there is no button.
There is, however, a football. Except the football is actually a briefcase.
The 45-pound briefcase, known as the nuclear football, accompanies the president wherever he goes. It is carried at all times by one of five military aides, representing each branch of the United States armed forces.
Inside the case is an instructional guide to carrying out a strike, including a list of locations that can be targeted by the more than 1,000 nuclear weapons that make up the American arsenal. The case also includes a radio transceiver and code authenticators.
To authorize the attack, the president must first verify his identity by providing a code he is supposed to carry on him at all times. The code, often described as a card, is nicknamed “the biscuit.”

In his 2010 autobiography, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the final years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, wrote that Mr. Clinton had lost the biscuit for several months without informing anyone.
“That’s a big deal,” General Shelton wrote, “a gargantuan deal.”
The president does not need approval from anyone else, including Congress or the military, to authorize a strike — a decision that might have to be made at a moment’s notice.
Nevertheless, some politicians have called for more layers of approval.
“The longer I’m in the Senate, the more I fear for a major error that somebody makes,” Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said in 2016. “One man, the president, is responsible. He makes an error and, who knows, it’s Armageddon.”
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North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency released this photograph in October showing Kim Jong-un observing a recent missile test.Credit...Korean Central News Agency
How would Kim Jong-un order a strike?
Much of North Korea’s nuclear program is shrouded in mystery.
Mr. Kim, however, is the undisputed ruler of his isolated country. Any decision to initiate an attack would most likely be his alone. In recent months, Mr. Kim has threatened to ignite an “enveloping fire” of missiles near the Pacific island of Guam, an American territory, and has warned that North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles are capable of reaching the mainland United States.

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“It’s not a mere threat but a reality that I have a nuclear button on the desk in my office,” Mr. Kim said in a speech on Monday. “All of the mainland United States is within the range of our nuclear strike.”
It is doubtful that there really is a button on his desk. Furthermore, an intercontinental attack from the North probably could not happen in minutes, let alone seconds.
The North’s longest-range missiles are believed to be powered by liquid rocket fuel. That means the missiles cannot be stored and ready-to-fire at a moment’s notice. They must be loaded with fuel before launch, a process than can take hours.
Newer, shorter-range missiles, are loaded with solid fuel, however, making them easier to launch before the North’s enemies detect an attack.

Milley acted to prevent Trump from misusing nuclear weapons, war with China, book says
The book also revealed a previously unreported call between then-Vice President Mike Pence and former Vice President Dan Quayle.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley took steps to prevent then-President Donald Trump from misusing the country's nuclear arsenal during the last month of his presidency, according to a new book by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa obtained by NBC News.

Their book, "Peril," said that in the days before the 2020 election, Milley also acted to prevent a potential conflict with China. The book said Milley received intelligence that Chinese officials believed the U.S. was getting ready to attack them. To defuse tensions, Milley called the head of China's military, Gen. Li Zuocheng, and told him the "American government is stable" and "we are not going to attack."

"If we're going to attack, I'm going to call you ahead of time. It's not going to be a surprise," Milley is quoted as saying.

"We're not going to have a fight," Milley told him, according to the book.

Li replied, "Okay."

"I take you at your word," Li said.

Trump laced into Milley in a statement, calling the general a "dumb---" and the details of the story "Fake News."

"For the record, I never even thought of attacking China — and China knows that. The people that fabricated the story are sick and demented, and the people who print it are just as bad," he said in the statement.

The book, set to be released Sept. 21, also recounted a phone conversation Milley had with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol, which Pelosi blamed on an "unhinged" Trump. Pelosi said in January that she spoke to Milley about "preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike."

"I can guarantee you, you can take it to the bank, that there'll be, that the nuclear triggers are secure and we're not going to do — we're not going to allow anything crazy, illegal, immoral or unethical to happen," Milley told her, according to a transcript of the call obtained by the authors.

"The president alone can order the use of nuclear weapons. But he doesn't make the decision alone. One person can order it, several people have to launch it," he said later in the conversation.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley sought to avert conflict with China over Trump fears, new book reports

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After the call, Milley summoned senior officers from the National Military Command Center to go over the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, the book said. He told the officers that if they got a call, "you do the procedure. You do the process. And I'm part of that procedure," he said — making sure he was in the loop on any planned military actions, the book said.

Those scenarios didn't come to fruition.

The book also revealed a previously unreported call between then-Vice President Mike Pence and former Vice President Dan Quayle in late December. Pence was seeking advice about Trump's demand that he refuse to recognize the election results during the electoral vote count on Jan. 6.

Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 1.Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Quayle thought Trump's suggestion was "preposterous and dangerous," according to the book. He told Pence: "You have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away."

Pence told him, "I've been trying to tell Trump," but "there are other guys there saying I have this power."