After the January 6^th riots House Speaker Pelosi asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to have the nuclear launch codes removed from President Trump. To his great credit General Milley explained to her that it could not be done but that there were safeguards in place to ensure that any lunch could not be ordered on a whim. To let everyone, know the president does not have a launch button on his desk that he can push anytime he would like. He has access to the launch codes that will authorize the military to attack preset targets. Should he call for the codes there will be a number of people that will follow the “football” in, and they will have the authority to not follow the president’s orders if they feel it to be capricious or unlawful.

Recently 30 democrat members of congress authored a letter with the intent of changing the system that would remove the president from being the sole authority in issuing the launch codes.  What could cause these members of congress to take up this request in unknown. They either have no idea has the system works or do know and are trying to make political hay. I do not believe that this would ever get far but if it were to, we need to understand the second and third order effect this would have on national security.

Should a counterstrike, or even a first strike, ever become necessary the current chain of command contains cool heads and experience in what would be required and to what degree. Compare this with a partisan congressional committee trying to make a split-second decision. So far congress has not been able to come up with a budget or a workable plan to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the accepted doctrines of the time that kept the cold war cold was MAD “Mutually Assured Destruction.” The doctrine held that if any one side launched an attack the other would respond immediately assure both sides would be destroyed. Now imagine that a future enemy, say Iran or North Korea, developed the capacity to launch a nuclear strike on the US or more likely in the short-term China. If they assessed that a US counterstrike would be delayed or maybe never happen then there is no deterrence. All because a partisan group made a power grab owing to their political philosophy that all power resides in the collective rather than the individual.

When next we get a chance to vote PLEASEThink about the individual candidate, regardless of party, and vote for that person’s ability to represent you not some ideology.