...Sean Illing (click here)
Let me start with a simple but important question: Can the president unilaterally launch a nuclear strike?
Peter Feaver
No. But the wording of your question is very precise. Can he launch a strike “unilaterally”? No. He requires other people to carry out an order, so he can't just lean on a button and automatically the missiles fly. But he has the legal and political authority on his own to give an order that would cause other people to take steps which would result in a nuclear strike. That’s the system we currently have.
Sean Illing
So there’s no magic lever the president can pull to send us into nuclear war, but I’m trying to imagine the contexts in which the president might give the order.
Peter Feaver
Well, there are two 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....
