Launching nuclear weapons is undoubtedly the single most powerful authority that a President
of the United States has.
Even scarier is that he or she can, almost, have no checks or balances on the strike-
but more on that later.
The mysterious black briefcase that is always within arm's reach of the President has mystified
people for decades and has become a symbol of both the President's great responsibility
and a symbol of a bygone era that some believe should be cast into the history books.
So what exactly is the nuclear football?
For starters, it’s not shaped like a football at all.
The device itself is an all-aluminum case that is placed inside a black leather bag.
The bag itself is carried by a military officer of at least the O-4 paygrade that serves as
an aide to the President.
Indeed, the aide is always with the President whenever he is out of the White House.
No matter whether it is a trip to meet foreign dignitaries at high-level conferences, fancy
hotels, or even just a trip to get a pizza, the military aide will be right by the President’s
side.
Just why Presidents have a nuclear football in the first place actually arose during the
Kennedy administration at the height of the Cold War.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, where both the US and Russia were probably within days,
if not hours of nuclear war, Kennedy realized that the situations in which nuclear weapons
might be needed could develop so quickly that something that allowed the President access
from anywhere in the world was needed.
Additionally, President Kennedy wanted a system whereby the proper command authorities and
troops launching the actual missiles could verify the President's identity.
After all, one would not want an imposter giving false orders to annihilate the whole
world.
Kennedy also wanted a way that he could quickly meet with his top command advisors to make
the most informed decision possible.
Hence, the nuclear football was born.
Though the device has been around since the 1960s, there are a great number of misconceptions
about the device.
The first one is that there is only one of them.
In reality, there are actually three nuclear footballs.
The first one always stays with the President, and the second one is always with the vice
president if the President becomes incapacitated.
The last one is actually a spare that stays at the White House.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no magic red button that the President can press and
rain hellfire on anyone in the world.
Rather, it is a little more complicated than that.
If the President decides to launch nuclear weapons, once he or she opens the briefcase,
the President will be greeted with a rather impressive communication equipment and official
documentation.
When the President wants to give the order to strike, the first thing that will happen
is the aide will take the President aside and help lay out all the documentation for
him or her.
After establishing secure communications with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military
officers from each branch, the President will decide whether to meet in the situation room
and continue the strike via a secure telephone conference.
Once positive communications have been established with this command authority, the President
must establish his or her identity.
The way this is done is through the so-called biscuit.
The biscuit is a small, laminated index card that the President also carries on his body.
It is a response to the challenge posed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It is typically a two-letter response to a two letter challenge.
For example, the challenge could be "Delta-Foxtrot," and the response could be "Echo-Bravo."
These codes, which are classified to the highest level possible, must be correct, or the strike
will not continue since the President cannot verify his identity.
Once the President’s identity has been verified, the President will quickly discuss the situation
and the possible response to it.
While certainly nuclear options will be on the table, the generals and admirals could
convince the President to take another course of action.
If they cannot convince him or agree, the order will continue through a series of secure,
encrypted messages sent to the units responsible for the firing.
To decide what kind of response the President wants, there is a literal black book inside
the briefcase.
This book contains a pre-planned list of responses to a number of attacks.
The best way that one former aide could describe this list was as a sort of like picking from
a Denny's menu where the President could assemble a nuclear attack by picking options from each
column.
Also contained within the black book is a super-secret list of safe houses within the
United States.
No matter where the President is traveling, he or she can find somewhere to hunker down
while giving this command.
Once the encrypted orders have been sent out from the Pentagon, the firing units then receive
them and encrypt them.
For land-based nuclear missiles, silo teams take the encoded, pre-planned responses and
compare them to the coded messages locked inside a safe.
At all times, at least two people must be present when opening the safe and decoding
the message.
After the message is decoded, it is put up to a vote by the silo team to fire the missiles.
Five keys must be turned simultaneously to fire the missiles but only two of them must
agree to fire.
For missiles based on a submarine, the initial decoding is quite similar.
The order must be retrieved with at least two people, and then the commanding officer,
executive officer, and two department heads must decode the message.
Only a unanimous vote amongst all four officers that the message is authentic and legal will
allow the strike to continue.
Though this seems like a tremendous amount of power to be in one person's hands, and
there can be no doubt that it is, it is not the ultimate, God-like authority that some
people claim the President has in this matter.
The reason for this is because, despite what some people say, there are checks and balances
in place- though not what they are used to for civilians.
The President serves as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and, as such, is a civilian
who controls military members who are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and
the regulations of their respective services.
Though people would be correct in stating that there are no civilian checks and balances,
since not even the Vice President or the Secretary of Defense can veto a legal launch order,
there are balances within the military hierarchy.
The first balance comes in the form of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
These senior officers are the most experienced and most capable officers that the entire
military can muster.
These men and women have a combined service record of almost two hundred years of experience
and have been through countless tough and high-stress situations.
With their combined experience, these flag officers are best suited to advise the President
on options other than a nuclear strike.
However, if these officers cannot convince the President of any other option, they still
cannot obey an unlawful order.
For an order to be lawful, it must be issued by a competent authority as well as be clear,
specific, and have a valid military purpose.
If the order does not meet all of these criteria, it is not legal and the officers will not
notify the Pentagon to issue the messages to the firing units.
By doing this, inadvertent orders such as those from an angry, drunk, or otherwise incapacitated
President will not be obeyed.
If the President is simply feuding with another country, like getting roasted by North Korea
on twitter- again- the Joint Chiefs of Staff will simply ignore it.
Once the order has gotten past here, there are no more checks and balances on the desire
to launch nuclear weapons, but there are actually firing them.
As mentioned earlier, both land-based missile crews and submarine officers can veto the
order to fire if they do not believe it is legal or authentic.
While these troops cannot deny based solely on the targets, they can deny launching the
missiles if they do not believe it was actually the President who gave the order.
But despite this vast array of checks and balances, there have been numerous times when
the nuclear football has nearly been comprised.
The most famous example was during Reagan’s attempted assassination.
After he was shot, he was quickly taken to the emergency room, and his military aide
was left at the scene.
Once at the hospital, his clothes were cut off, as is standard procedure, and his belongings
were emptied into plastic bags.
Among his belongings, inside his sock, was the biscuit needed to authenticate the President's
identity.
This crucial information vital to national security was unceremoniously left in the hallway.
President Clinton also left his biscuit behind when he was rushing to leave an international
conference in Paris.
When he met Russian leader Khrushchev, Nixon got separated from his nuclear football, and
he unexpectedly sped off in his car.
With his security team struggling to catch up, the United States had no nuclear option
for about half an hour.
While these might seem understandable, probably the most egregious offense came during President
Carter's administration when he accidentally forgot his biscuit in his suit pocket that
he sent to the dry cleaners.
Most recently, the nuclear football has once again become a subject of debate during President
Trump’s administration.
When he was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, he was sent to the hospital with a military
aide in tow.
Throughout his entire stay, he never once gave up his authority as President as guaranteed
in the 25th Amendment.
Rather, he kept his command authority, and even in quarantine while taking experimental
drugs, he could have given the order to launch nuclear weapons.
It is for this reason that the debate of whether the nuclear football in today’s day and
age is even necessary.
After all, even during the Cold War, the chance that the Soviet Union would launch a surprise,
a preemptive attack was negligible since both sides knew that each other would be wiped
off the map.
Rather, why the device has stuck around is a physical reminder of just how much authority
is really vested in the office of the President.
Some argue that the authority to launch nuclear weapons should only be a power vested in the
collective minds of Congress.
While this argument makes sense on the surface since Congress has the sole authority to declare
war, and launching nuclear weapons being the ultimate de facto declaration of war, there
are a number of reasons that are still valid against this argument.
Firstly is that Congress is a public forum.
Debating whether to use nuclear weapons would alert other countries to what America wanted
to do.
Even during an emergency session of Congress, the news media would have a field day over
this.
By doing so, adversary nations would get the crucial time required to preemptively strike
and take out American nuclear arms before they are hit.
The next reason why this would not be a good idea is a common theme in politics in that
politics takes too long.
In quick, fast-developing situations, there might not be time to decide on what to do.
Rather, at that moment, there can only be a knowledgeable and balanced man or woman
who can decide whether or not to use the ultimate weapon- or so it’s hoped.
Though this scenario might seem remote, it is still the only chance the United States
has of defending itself in the direst of situations.
For that reason, at least into the near future, the nuclear football will continue to serve
alongside Presidents until an alternative solution is reached.