Talk:Gold Codes

418135

Possible sources and such

some source stuff, in case someone wants to cite it all up (and in case anyone is dissuaded by the whole unsourced tag). All Google Books links.

• How to Be President by Stephen P. Williams p44
• Information Please Almanac (1987) p295
• Nuclear deterrence, morality, and realism by John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, and Germain Gabriel Grisez p54

Have fun. --an odd name 12:52, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The chain of command for the release of nuclear warheads is set forth in Department of Defense (DoD) directive 5100.30. On October 22, 2014, this directive was reissued, retitled, and renumbered as DoD 3700.01, “DoD Command and Control (C2) Enabling Capabilities.” Further, classified portions relating to C2 were incorporated into DoD Directive S-5210.81, “(U) United States Nuclear Weapons Command and Control, Safety, and Security.” 108.31.29.186 (talk) 14:59, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Football

This article says "The satchel also includes a secure satellite phone" although Nuclear football says it is unknown if it has communications or what type they are, although an antenna has been seen. Pnorman (talk) 07:15, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

too much personal opinion here

not enough fact.Typhoon2885 (talk) 13:02, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

insufficient sourcing

"In the third and final 2016 Presidential Debate, Hillary Clinton confirmed it "can take as little as four minutes" after the President gives the order to the launch officer receiving the command. [10]" Unless there is another source that validates this, her saying so at a debate is not enough. 100.15.138.239 (talk) 00:48, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the sourcing (a sole link to Twitter) was insufficient sourcing for a quote from a living person. I have replaced it and improved the article with the following sources:

• Jeffrey Lewis (5 August 2016), "Our Nuclear Procedures Are Crazier Than Trump", Foreign Policy magazine, retrieved 5 November 2016
• Zbigniew Brzezinski (30 March 2012), "A Conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski", Council on Foreign Relations, YouTube, retrieved 5 November 2016

Hopefully now we can see that this information about a "four-minute-window" actually predates the year 2016 by at least four years, to the year 2012 -- in a statement by a former United States National Security Advisor in a public interview to the Council on Foreign Relations. Thank you, for pointing this out and commenting upon it here on the talk page so we can improve the accuracy of this article. 69.50.70.9 (talk) 00:24, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

2012 public interview with United States National Security Advisor

In a 30 March 2012 public interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, former United States National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski explained that after learning of what was later a false alarm regarding a potential nuclear attack, he had three minutes to determine if he should inform the President of the United States. The President would then have a time period of four minutes to decide what to do next. Foreign Policy magazine reported on this in a 5 August 2016 article: "he recalled having only three minutes to decide whether or not to inform the president, after which the president had four minutes to decide whether or not to retaliate."

Added the above to the article. 69.50.70.9 (talk) 00:13, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

References

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Two man rule no longer applies

This sentence is no longer valid

"A two-man rule applies, however: the National Command Authority comprising the president and Secretary of Defense must jointly authenticate the order to use nuclear weapons to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

The situation is complex so rather than edit the article right away I think I need to summarize what the situation is, then we can think about what to do about the article. The idea that it is a two-man rule stems back to this directive from 1971:

"The NCA consists only of the President and the Secretary of Defense or their duly deputized alternates or successors. The chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense and through the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Commanders of the Unified and Specified Commands."

World-Wide Military Command and Control System, DoD Directive S-5100.30 This directive was superceded on October 22, 2014 by DoD directive 3700.1 and DoD directive S-5210.81.

This makes it pretty clear that the secretary of Defense could refuse to carry out Trump's command, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff could or the Commanders of the Unified and Specified Commands

But Perry, a former Secretary of Defense, so the very person who according to this theory should be able to stop the president from launching the nuclear weapons said he would not be in the loop of necessity, he said

“The order can go directly from the president to the Strategic Air Command. The Defense secretary is not necessarily in that loop,” Former Pentagon chief: Defense secretary couldn’t stop Trump if he wants nuclear war

How is that possible? There's another DoD document that contradicts the first one that is more recent, from 2015. This is from: The President and the Bomb, Part III

"The President may direct the use of nuclear weapons through an execute order via the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the combatant commanders and, ultimately, to the forces in the field exercising direct control of the weapons."

And Perry is saying that too. So it seems that the Secretary of Defense is not in the loop after all. He or she would normally be consulted, but the president can bypass him.

If so - then it would be up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff - so the military - to refuse the order if Trump made some ill judged order to fire a nuclear weapon. At that point it is a military rather than a political decision to refuse the president’s order.

That's why many in Congress want to change this situation. See Take Away Trump's Power to Nuke First - ICAS

“Earlier this year Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the “Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017,” which would do exactly that. The legislation requires a Congressional declaration of war before the commander-in-chief can initiate a first nuclear strike. While the president would retain the full authority to launch a nuclear counterattack, thus preserving the long-standing policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD), this legislation would significantly bolster global stability. Potential adversaries would be far less concerned about the prospect of an American surprise nuclear attack if doing so would require lengthy deliberation in the halls of Congress. In a crisis scenario, this removes a significant element of uncertainty, reducing the risk of a misunderstanding and conflict escalation.” Former Pentagon chief: Defense secretary couldn’t stop Trump if he wants nuclear war

Those bills have stalled in Congress Don’t Count on the Cabinet to Stop a Trump-Ordered Nuclear Strike

So that’s where the autumn 2017 Senate hearing planned on Trump’s ability to authorize nuclear strike

WATCH: Senate committee holds hearing on president's ability to authorize nuclear weapons

The hearing starts 15 minutes in after other business.

It’s the first such since 1976, held out of concern about the level of authority a president has in view of Trump’s tweets about nuclear weapons. Senator Kane explained (1 : 10 into the hearing) that he is concerned that the president of US is so unstable, so volatile, and has a decision making process that is so quixotic that he might order a nuclear weapons strike that is wildly out of step with US national security interests.

They explained that a president can actually issue an order directly to the four star general in charge of launching the nuclear weapons, bypassing the defense secretary. The military responsibility to launch the weapons then lies with the general. Those below him in the command chain, those who launch the weapons, don’t know enough about what is going on to question the order.

He or she would however apply the test of whether it is legal. It would have to fulfill the tests of being necessary and proportional. And if not he would not only be able to refuse the order but would be required to do so. U.S. nuclear general says would resist 'illegal' Trump strike order

I did a summary of this hearing as a blog post Can Trump order a nuclear attack on civilians in North Korea in peace time without Congress approval? General Kehler says no.

That is my own summary so it is not a WP:RS but the hearing it summarizes is publicly available for anyone to listen to and we could transcribe / quote from it (I'm not sure if it would be a primary or secondary source, probably depend on the way in which it is used). Also, there are many articles about the hearing in the press so we could surely find one that counts as a WP:RS for wikipedia.

So, I think this sentence needs to be updated. But it would not be correct to just remove the bit about it being a two stage process without going into these matters of the right and indeed requirement of the general to disobey an illegal order, and something of the whole recent history of this situation. That's quite a major revision of this page. For now I have just added an inline disputed - discuss tag linking to this section on the talk page. Robert Walker (talk) 22:47, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

From your "blog.nuclearsecrecy.com" citation: "The President may direct the use of nuclear weapons through an execute order via the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the combatant commanders and, ultimately, to the forces in the field exercising direct control of the weapons." Disregarding that this does not appear to be a RS, the author indicates that this comes from "Annex 3-72 - Nuclear Operations" on the webpage for "Center for Doctrine Development and Education". Following through, we can find this PDF (the blog author's direct link is broken), in which the terminology executive order is linked to a glossary definition: An order issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the direction of the Secretary of Defense, to implement a decision by the President to initiate military operations. 2. An order to initiate military operations as directed. Also called EXORD. (JP 5-0) (emphasis mine)

Accordingly, we can see that the citation - despite its clarity that (after reading a lot of DOD doctrine) makes [the blog author] want to weep with joy - entirely contradicts the assertion.

The rest of what you mention seems like standard political posturing - a lot of people have something to gain politically by painting Trump as someone who might actually go through with this. 74.12.95.204 (talk) 10:28, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the term 'National Command Authority' was no longer in use. Another Wikipedia entry seems to confirm it. Anyone? Gentleman wiki (talk) 04:15, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Where does the title "Gold Codes" come from?

I see it's in the first reference, but not any others as far as I can see. Is there perhaps a more common name for this set of codes? Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Nuclear-defense policy expert Franklin Miller states that the president has almost single authority to initiate a nuclear attack and the secretary of defense is required to verify the order, he or she cannot legally veto it.

Under the Law of War, if the president ordered the “illegal” use of nukes, such as an unprovoked act of aggression or an attack on a whim where no diplomatic efforts to mitigate a crisis have been made, the military is required to refuse such an order. Such orders are clearly illegal. Members of the military have already gone on record stating that any illegal order from the President would be refused: Retired General Mike Hayden created a stir with his recent appearance on the HBO show, “Real Time with Bill Maher.” In the interview, Hayden told Maher that if Donald Trump wins the election and then attempts to fulfill some of his more outlandish campaign promises, the new Republican president would be blocked by the senior military. Actually, what Hayden said was, “the American armed forces would refuse to act” and that the senior military will be correct in doing so because, as he put it, military commanders, “are required not to follow an unlawful order.” [3] And more validation… A former senior U.S. military officer said an order from the president to launch nuclear weapons can be refused if that command is determined to be illegal. Retired Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday the U.S. armed forces are obligated to follow legal orders, not illegal ones. Kehler served as commander of Strategic Command from January 2011 to November 2013. He said the legal principles of military necessity, distinction and proportionality also apply to decisions about the use of nuclear weapons. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., asked Kehler if that meant the top officer at Strategic Command can deny the president’s order if it fails those tests. Kehler said, “Yes.” [4] Military.com reported: The top commander of U.S. nuclear forces says he would push back if President Donald Trump asked him to carry out an order he deemed “illegal.” Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten told the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday that he and Trump have discussed what would happen if the president ordered a nuclear strike that the general believed to be unlawful under international law. “I think some people think we’re stupid. We’re not stupid people,” Hyten said. “We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility, how do you not think about it?” Hyten would be in charge of U.S. nuclear forces in a war. If Trump decided to launch a nuclear attack, Hyten would provide him with strike options, and the president would make his decision. “The way the process works, it’s simple,” said Hyten. “I provide advice to the president, he’ll tell me what to do, and if it’s illegal, guess what is going to happen? “I’m going to say, ‘Mr. President, that’s illegal.’ And guess what he’s going to do? He’s going to say, ‘What would be legal?'” Hyten said he and Trump would work to find another course of action. Unlike troops in authoritarian regimes, our military is obliged to disregard illegal orders or face the consequences. [6]

Legal scenarios vs illegal scenarios. The difference is obvious and the results are far different. Peter Feaver, expert witness called in congressional hearing on this subject… Well, there are two scenarios that come to mind. One is that the president is woken up in the middle of the night and told he has only 30 minutes or less to make a decision because we are under attack or about to be attacked, and of course that means hundreds if not thousands of people in the national security complex who've been monitoring world events and passed through various protocols have concluded this is what's happening, and we need an answer from the president. In that context, the system is designed to be able to carry out an order in that narrow time span, and he alone would have the legal authority to give that order if he's still alive. The other scenario is that the president wakes the military up in the middle of the night and says, "Hey, I want to do a nuclear strike," and in that setting, he would raise a lot of alarms throughout the chain of command. People would be saying, "Well, what is this? Why are we doing this?" It would require a lot more people to say, "Yes. This is the right decision." The military is trained to disobey illegal orders, so context matters. If they've woken up the president because they believe they're under attack, there's a presumption of legality if the president orders a strike. But if the president wakes them up in the middle of the night and orders a nuclear strike with no context, no crisis, no alert, then there's not a presumption that that order is legal. They would raise serious questions. [8] Uswine99 (talk) 17:08, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

i wrote extensively on this subject on quora .... all my references are here is you would like the details https://www.quora.com/Would-the-military-really-have-to-obey-a-Trump-command-to-fire-a-nuclear-weapon Uswine99 (talk) 17:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC)