Lawmakers Introduce Bill Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons

[milestogo]

Source: Foreign Policy

Lawmakers introduced a bill in both houses of Congress Tuesday that would prevent the president from launching a nuclear first strike without a congressional declaration of war. A policy that was long debated but never seriously pursued during the Obama administration has now become anything other than abstract after the election of Donald Trump.

Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) introduced legislation meant to pry the nuclear football out of the presidents hands. Nuclear war poses the gravest risk to human survival. Yet, President Trump has suggested that he would consider launching nuclear attacks against terrorists, Markey said in a statement. Unfortunately, by maintaining the option of using nuclear weapons first in a conflict, U.S. policy provides him with that power. In a crisis with another nuclear-armed country, this policy drastically increases the risk of unintended nuclear escalation.

Over the course of her campaign against President Trump, Hillary Clinton repeatedly warned that A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons. It would seem Markey and Lieu agree.

Lieu, who has a paper sign reading, Alternative Fact Free Zone outside his office, took aim at Trumps ignorance. It is a frightening reality that the U.S. now has a Commander-in-Chief who has demonstrated ignorance of the nuclear triad, stated his desire to be unpredictable with nuclear weapons, and as President-elect was making sweeping statements about U.S. nuclear policy over Twitter. Congress must act to preserve global stability by restricting the circumstances under which the U.S. would be the first nation to use a nuclear weapon.

Read more: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/24/senator-and-congressman-introduce-restricting-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons-act-trump/

[Scalded Nun]

1. They need some serious GOP backing if they plan on overriding the veto

Will there be enough GOP members in both houses to do this? Are any waking up yet to the true danger this monster poses to our country?

[TexasBushwhacker]

22. I certainly hope so

Of course, I'm not sure Trump would pay any attention to the law.

[Hekate]

23. Right. We desperately need some layers of protection from Dr. Strangelove

[uppityperson]

2. "has now become anything other than abstract after the election of Donald Trump. "

[mopinko]

3. keep pounding those nails guys. one of them will pin that asshole down.

keep making them read bills, hear bills, see teevee stories, sit in committee and debate bills that everyone knows are aimed at tying this madman in knots.
make listen to the consequences of their actions.
make them own it.

[Renew Deal]

4. It won't pass and it's probably not constitutional anyway

Though it's still worthy

[Stonepounder]

5. I don't think there is anything in the constitution about nuclear weapons.

And Congress did pass the War Powers Act to limit the president.

[Renew Deal]

9. Good point

[pfitz59]

6. and we thought Obama's drone strikes were bad

just wait until Trump drops a nuke in the mideast..

[dchill]

7. By Mideast, do you mean, like...

Chicago?

[malthaussen]

11. Well, he can't nuke the Standing Rock camps...

... they wouldn't be able to build the pipeline after.

-- Mal

[IronLionZion]

13. He'll use conventional weapons for that

since native americans have some tribal sovereignty, he'll use military resources to make America great again by removing inconvenient enemies

[secondwind]

8. Well, this is a little ray of sunshine ... I hope it sticks.

[malthaussen]

10. So much for MAD.

Ah, guys? The Prez doesn't have to wait for a declaration of war (forsooth -- we've been making war for 70 years without any declarations) because response to an attack must be, like, instantaneous.

I'm really surprised Night of Camp David hasn't had a resurgence in popularity. Probably because Seven Days in May was made into a movie. But the former is so much more relevant to today.

-- Mal

[AtheistCrusader]

16. This doesn't affect this. This bill would take a FIRST strike off the table.

Not a response to incoming attack.

MAD is alive and well, under this scenario.

[malthaussen]

18. Yeah, I noticed that at second reading.

It's still a pretty stupid idea. For one thing, if said law is ever violated, what are they gonna do about it? There won't be any world left.

-- Mal

[AtheistCrusader]

19. Maybe. I mean, plenty of laws against genocide on the table already.

So it's kinda moot from that angle. It's not a given that an attempt by the president would necessarily lead to that outcome. There's no 'button'. The president issues authorization, and humans must carry out validation of that authentication and authorization, target, and launch.

Many, most or all of the Chain of Command of our strategic forces may reject such an order. Humans are funny that way. I doubt we've ever gotten 100% out of a system-wide test of our strategic forces. And that's when they all tried to comply.


The Russians even had an issue like this. When cold war tensions were at their highest, and Russia had just shot down a South Korean civilian airliner, and EVERYONE's nuclear weapons were on hair trigger 'Launch On Warning' doctrine, Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov saved us all by correctly identifying a nuclear launch warning in their satellite observation system as a false alarm.

So far, no one is crazy enough to connect a button to the launch system. Humans have to do it. I believe any attempt to start a nuclear war by the PotUS would be a milestone historians would refer to as the start of a military coup in the United States. Not the end of the world.

[malthaussen]

20. Hard to say, though.

The missile defense forces are in the hands of people pretty strongly screened for the psychological tendency to obey orders. I mean, what normal schmuck would willingly launch a mult-megaton nuclear weapon intended to kill millions of grannies and children? So one would imagine their likelihood to mutiny was lower than others not in the strategic forces. But it's all speculation. I wouldn't be surprised if half the things didn't work, anyway. In one of Bob Heinlein's alternate timelines, he refers to the "Wet Firecracker War." I've always liked that one, but it only takes a few working examples to mess things up considerably, given the capacity for overkill already present (and which Mr Trump purposes to increase).

-- Mal

[AtheistCrusader]

21. Huh, I'm going to have to read that one. Sounds good.

Sounds likely to map to reality too, to your point. Some of the codes/launch info for targets is on floppy disks.


Floppy disks.

Yeah, a bunch of stuff isn't going to fire off at all.

[Ray Bruns]

12. This is nonsense.

I understand the sentiment, but won't happen because:

1) The republicans control congress and the White House.

2)Unconstitutional - Separation of powers. The president is the commander in chief and the War Powers Act gives the president power to commit troops (or deploy weapons) for up to 60 days before congressional approval. The president must notify congress within 48 hours of the troop commitment.

And most important-

3) If you think anyone is going to be around 48 hours after the deployment of the first nuclear weapon, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Cheap.

[FairWinds]

14. Lets try for a little bit of realism here . .

First, the US has NEVER had a "no first use policy" - (but
other nations do. The US has been reckless with nukes for
a long time.)

(And in fact the US has repeatedly threatened the use of
nukes.)

Second, Rumsfeld and Cheney also proudly proclaimed how
great it was to be "unpredictable."

[lark]

15. Thank you Lieu and Markey.

There is absolutely zero chance this will pass. R's won't vote for it, they don't want to tie their leaders hands and don't want to be on his bad side. Most R's are traitors to the people of this country and it's ideals and don't think deeply enough to know that being on drumpfs bad side but protecting the country is worth it.

[tclambert]

17. So if Donald blows up the world, the cockroaches can arrest him?