End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity” ~llaw
Jan 23, 2025
LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY with THE RISKS & CONSEQUENCES OF TOMORROW
This one-liner quote — that opens this very long article by By Prof. Louis René Beres for “Modern Diplomacy” hit home to me after posting 858 daily “LLAW’s All Things Nuclear” on this blog (that should now be followed by thousands instead of a few here and there), and then is, secondly hitting home, this paragraph, copied from well into the story, were all that I needed to hear ((read) to convince me about all the rest (I urge you to take the time to read and consider what Prof. Louis René Beres has to say about nuclear threat history, potential nuclear war, and Donald Trump:
The opening quotation: “The man who laughs has simply not yet heard the terrible news.”-Bertolt Brecht
The ultimate paragraph: The United States must finally take heed. By electing Donald J. Trump in 2024, Americans decided to abide a wittingly law-violating[34] and science-averse president. In essence, therefore, the “die is cast,” but the nation must still prepare for avoiding the worst. The correlative task is to quickly refine and clarify America’s nuclear command authority.[35] Ipso facto, to fail in this task[36] ought never to be considered rational or tolerable.
The background, including presidential or other related comparisons along with historical background and discussion here are more than just something to think about, ignore, or simply laugh about, but to consider, digest, speak out, and help rally us all to act on what needs to be done regarding responsible control and demolition of nuclear weapons of mass destruction (including nuclear power plants and nuclear waste) and avoiding any future use of “All Things Nuclear” forever . . . ~llaw
Reconsidering Nuclear Command Authority: America’s Most Urgent Obligation
It’s high time for candor. President Donald J. Trump has effectively unchecked nuclear command authority.
January 23, 2025
“The man who laughs has simply not yet heard the terrible news.”-Bertolt Brecht
It’s high time for candor. President Donald J. Trump has effectively unchecked nuclear command authority. Though once inconceivable, this president could sometime choose to order the use of nuclear weapons without adequate strategic or legal justification. It is also plausible he could act irrationally during existential crises, including nuclear policy maelstroms of his own making.
Even in Trump’s visceral strategic universe, truth matters. We have long passed the point where his foreign policy commentaries are just funny or eccentric. Earlier, when Trump asserted “the moon is part of Mars” and that “nuclear weapons could be used to fight hurricanes,” it seemed merely occasion for laughter. Today, however, as he threatens to re-name the Gulf of Mexico, take over Greenland and re-take the Panama Canal, such merriment is no longer defensible on any grounds. To the point, Trump 2.0 will quickly become an existential problem, not “just” for the United States, but also for the wider world.
What happens next? What should be done to protect the United States and this wider world from literally unprecedented peril? There can be no more urgent question.[1]
There is more. The question has many parts.[2] Several parts are not only intersecting; they are also synergistic. This means, portentously, that the “whole” of pertinent intersectional consequences is greater than the simple sum of constituent “parts.”[3] Such ascribed meaning is not logically contestable. It is true by definition.
Specific questions will rapidly accumulate. “In what specific nuclear policy directions should America now propel itself?” Looking ahead to more-or-less inevitable US nuclear crises with North Korea, China, Russia or (potentially) Iran,[4] variously grievous Trump errors or derelictions could bring existential or near-existential harms to the United States. For the moment, American strategic thinkers remain most visibly absorbed with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, but this Nuremberg-based[5] “crime against peace” (and also attendant “crimes against humanity[6]) could be sharply worsened by parallel crises involving North Korea and/or China.
Whatever happens in Ukraine, the always-unpredictable world of geopolitics will remain mired in a “state of nature.”[7] To survive within this corrosive system of geopolitics, the United States requires a president who can reliably meet the steep expectations of nuclear command authority. Together with his appropriate advisors, therefore, President Donald J. Trump must be capable of very intricate kinds of dialectical reasoning,[8] and, if necessary, to display such impressive capabilities in extremis atomicum.
The Intellectual Imperatives
There exist no reasonable ambiguities about Donald Trump’s lack of military nuclear understanding. On creating durably peaceful relations with North Korea, his prior “program” was never about reaching substantive forms of diplomatic understanding, but concerned “falling in love” with Kim Jung Un. How could such a caricatured presidential stance ever have been taken seriously in the US Congress and executive branch? It was, after all, the reductio ad absurdum of a president’s unambitious intellectual life.[9]
If America’s citizens have learned anything from the history of modern world politics – from the “balance of power”[10] that was originally put into place after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 – it is that any continuously unregulated system of win-at-all-costs thinking leads to war and civilizational breakdowns.[11] Though Donald Trump has proudly lauded “attitude” over “preparation,”[12] serious analytic thought continues to deserve a meaningful pride of place in the United States. To wit, the persistently unwinding “state of nature,” a global condition built upon intermittent aggression,[13] rancor and belligerent nationalism,[14] has never succeeded. Still more ominously, this Hobbesian “state of war” displays no signs of greater durability for the future.[15]
Understanding Decisional Hazards
Accumulating questions continue to stack up. What specific nuclear hazards present themselves to the United States? To begin, it should finally be recognized that an inappropriate or irrational nuclear command decision by an American president is neither science fiction nor apocalyptic delusion. Instead, it is integral to the authoritative “texts” of history, logic, science and mathematics.
Now, such a broadly-lethal decision is manifestly conceivable. Though nothing conclusive can be said about the precise mathematical probability of any such unprecedented scenario,[16] there do remain ample reasons for immediate concern.
There is more. In world politics, nothing happens ex nihilo. Americans should promptly inquire: “Might an unsteady, lawless or deluded US president become subject to lethal forms of personal dissemblance and/or psychological debility?” Leaving aside Donald J. Trump’s breathtaking preference for acrimonious human relations, there can be no credible assurances of this president’s capacity for difficult strategic calculation. A very similar doubt hangs over his chosen Secretary of Defense. As to uniformed active duty flag officers, their historically critical roles could be subordinated to the whims of servile presidential appointees.
Any US presidential order to use nuclear weapons carries the inherent expectation of witting compliance. While certain key figures along the operational chain of command could sometime choose to disobey such an order, any implicit disobedience could be deemed by Donald Trump as unlawful prima facie.To be sure, all soldiers of the United Sates are bound inter alia by post-Nuremberg obligations incorporated into American law, but there is little reason to believe that President Trump knows or cares about the Constitution’s Article 6 “Supremacy Clause.”
On September 16, 2021, authoritative testimony by then US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Miley, indicated how substantially law-violating Trump’s final days of his first administration had become.[17] Within 24 hours of being sworn in for a second administration in 2025, this US president physically removed General Miley’s portrait from the Pentagon. The venality of this gratuitous act was overshadowed only by its conspicuous irony.
. Regarding US nuclear command decisions, shouldPresident Donald J. Trump be granted extraordinary authority over uncountable human lives, a grant with implications that could never have been foreseen by the Founding Fathers?”[18] Could such a lopsided allocation of nuclear decision authority now faithfully represent what was originally intended by the American Constitution’s”separation of powers?” Can anyone reasonably believe that such unhindered existential power could ever have been favored by the “Fathers”? And what about the more general constraints of our wider global civilization?[19]
At a minimum, citizens and analysts can extrapolate from Articles I and II of the Constitutionthat the Founders displayed primary and palpable concern about expanding Presidential power long before nuclear weapons. Such codified concern predates any science-based imaginationsof apocalyptic possibility.[20] Today, in order to progress prudentially and sequentially on these issues, Americans should sincerely inquire: “How can we re-assess US nuclear command authority?”
A Scholar’s Personal Intellectual Odyssey
It’s a question long pondered by the present writer. For me, it has long represented a personal but analytic question. As academic scholar and policy-centered nuclear strategist, I have remained involved with these core security issues (Israeli and American) for over fifty years. Some highlights of this half-century involvement may help clarify relevant elements of US nuclear command policy.
On 14 March 1976, in response to my direct query concerning United States nuclear weapons launching authority, I received a letter from General (USA/ret.) Maxwell Taylor, a former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. The principal focus of this hand-written letter (attached hereto) concerned ascertainable nuclear risks of presidential irrationality.[21] Most noteworthy, in this communication, was the straightforward warning contained in General Taylor’s closing paragraph.
Ideally, Taylor cautioned wisely, presidential irrationality – an inherently grave problem – should be dealt with during an election process and not in the bewildering throes of any decisional crisis. At that point, the general understood, it could already be too late. He wisely concluded: “…. the best protection (against presidential irrationality) is not to elect one…”
By extrapolation, regarding America’s now enhanced presidential nuclear command problem, this conclusion was not accepted by American voters in 2024. Accordingly, American must now inquire with un-deflected focus: “What are the currently governing safeguards regarding US nuclear command authority?” The operational specifics of any such query are tightly held, of course, but could citizens at least be properly reassured that variously redundant safeguards are built into any presidential order to use nuclear weapons?
In any event, virtually all sensible and reinforcing safeguards would stop working “at the water’s edge.” They could become operative only at lower or sub-presidential nuclear command levels. Expressly stated, these safeguards do not apply to the American Commander-in-Chief.
Seemingly (though incorrectly), there existno permissible legal grounds to disobey a presidential order regarding the use of nuclear weapons. In principle, perhaps, certain senior individuals in the designated military chain of command could still sometime choose to invoke authoritative “Nuremberg Obligations,”[22] but any such last-minute invocation would almost certainly yield to more easily recognizable considerations of U.S. domestic law.[23]
Looking for Suitable Nuclear Policy Directions
Going forward, plausible and reasonable scenarios of nuclear war should be systematically postulated and expertly examined. For the moment, at least, should an incumbent American president operating within a chaos of his own making issue an irrational or seemingly irrational nuclear command, the only way for the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the National Security Adviser and several authoritative others to obstruct this wrongful order would be “illegal” ipso facto. Under the best of circumstances, informal correctives might manage to work for a short time, but any too blithe acceptance of a “best case scenario” could hardly be judged “realistic.”
Going forward, US strategic analysts now ought to inquire about more suitably predictable and promising institutional safeguards. These structural barriers could better shield Americans from a prospectively debilitated or otherwise compromised US president. “The worst,” says Friedrich Durrenmatt instructively, “does sometimes happen.”
The Swiss playwright’s assertion is unassailable.
Under President Donald J. Trump, the US is navigating in “uncharted waters.” Though President John F. Kennedy engaged in personal nuclear brinkmanship with the Soviet Union back in October 1962, he calculated the odds of a consequent nuclear war as “between one out of three and even.” This crazily precise calculation (one unwarranted by peremptory rules of logic and mathematics) was corroborated by JFK biographer Theodore Sorensen, and also by my own private conversations with former JCS Chair Admiral Arleigh Burke (my lecture colleague and roommate at the US Naval Academy’s Foreign Affairs Conference(NAFAC) of 1977) suggests that President Kennedy was either (1) technically irrational in imposing his Cuban “quarantine;”or (2) wittingly acting out variously untested principles of “pretended irrationality.”
In stark contrast to Donald J. Trump, JFK was operating with serious and intellectually capable strategic and legal advisors. He did not choose Adlai Stevenson to represent the United States at the United Nations because he was “glamorous” or “loyal.” Stevenson was selected because he was educationally prepared and diplomatically skilled.
The most urgent threat of a mistaken or irrational U.S. presidential order to use nuclear weapons would flow not from any “bolt-from-the-blue” nuclear attack[24] – whether Russian, North Korean, Chinese or (expressed as a preemption) American – but from sequentially uncontrollable escalatory processes. Back in 1962, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev “blinked” early on in the “game,” thereby preventing irrecoverable nuclear harms. Now, considering any seat-of-the-pants escalatory initiatives that could be undertaken by President Donald Trump, Americans ought never discount potentially intolerable nuclear decision-making consequences.
“Escalation Dominance” and Nuclear War
The newly re-installed American president should be made to understand the grave risks of being locked into a stubborn or refractory escalatory dynamic with an adversarial state. Here, the only available decisional options could be a presumptively abject American capitulation or presently-unpredictable form of nuclear warfighting. Though Trump could sometime be well advised to seek “escalation dominance”[25] in selected crisis circumstances, he would still need to avoid any catastrophic miscalculations. Moreover, this overriding need would not necessarily factor in potentially intersecting problems of hacking intrusion, nuclear accident or intellectual limitation/impairment.[26]
For the immediate future, imperatives concerning miscalculation avoidance would likely apply most directly to plausible one-upmanship narratives involving North Korea’s Kim Jung Un.[27] In such narratives, much would depend upon more-or-less foreseeable “synergies” between Washington and Pyongyang and on various difficult-to- control penetrations of cyber-conflict or cyber-war. American decision-makers might have to acknowledge the out-of-control interference of cyber-mercenaries, unprincipled third parties working exclusively for personal or corporate compensations.
Whether Americans like it or not, at one time or another, nuclear strategy represents a challenging “game” that Donald J. Trump will have to play. This will not be a contest for intellectual amateurs or for rancorous leaders lacking in requisite understandings of “will.”[28] To best ensure that a too-easily-distracted president’s strategic moves would remain determinedly rational, thoughtful and cumulatively cost-effective, it could first become necessary to enhance the formal decisional authority of his most senior military-defense subordinates.
There are pertinent particulars. At a minimum, the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Advisor and one or two others in appropriate nuclear command positions would need to prepare competently in advance. These figures would need to prepare to assume more broadly collaborative and secure judgments in extremis atomicum.[29]
Responsibilities of “The People”
Any proposed widening of nuclear authority could never be “guaranteed.” In the end, following General Maxwell Taylor’s letter to me of 14 March 1976, the best protection is still “not to elect” a president who is discernibly unfit for nuclear command responsibilities. But when that protection is no longer an option, viable decisional safeguards must be erected whatever the political costs. “The safety of the people,” asserted Cicero long before the nuclear age, “is the highest law.”[30]
There is something else. From the standpoint of correctly defining all relevant dangers, it is important to bear in mind that “irrational” does not necessarily mean “crazy” or “mad.” More specifically, prospectively fateful expressions of US presidential irrationality could take different and variously subtle forms.[31] These forms, which could remain indecipherable or latent for a long time, would include (a) a disorderly or inconsistent value system; (b) computational errors in calculation; (c) an incapacity to communicate correctly or efficiently; (d) random or haphazard influences in the making or transmittal of strategic decisions; and (e) internal dissonance generated by some structure of collective decision-making (i.e., assemblies of authoritative individuals who lack identical value systems and/or whose organizational arrangements impact their willing capacity to act as unitary national decision maker).
From the singularly critical standpoint of US nuclear weapon control issues (problematic issues[32] that could be be worsened by continuous American strategic postures of “First Use” and/or “Launch on Warning,”), legitimate reasons to worry about the Trump presidency do not hinge on any expectations of “madness.” Rather, looking over the above list of five representative traits, there is already good reason not for worry per se (worry itself could never represent a rational or purposeful US presidential reaction), but for non-partisan analytic objectivity and consistently calculable prudence. It won’t be easy to make tangible progress along this particular front, and it won’t necessarily succeed longer-term by electing a different president next time around.[33] But for now, for the Trump-led United States, there are no sensible alternatives.
For the indefinite future, US national security and US survival will require the prompt and law-based restraint of any flawed American president. It follows further that the security benefits of such needed restraints would confer corresponding security benefits on the world as a whole. In principle, at least, the full importance of any such corollary or “spillover” benefit could prove overwhelming.
The United States must finally take heed. By electing Donald J. Trump in 2024, Americans decided to abide a wittingly law-violating[34] and science-averse president. In essence, therefore, the “die is cast,” but the nation must still prepare for avoiding the worst. The correlative task is to quickly refine and clarify America’s nuclear command authority.[35] Ipso facto, to fail in this task[36] ought never to be considered rational or tolerable.
Playwright Bertolt Brecht would have understood. Though many might still “laugh” at the idea of an irrational or incompetent American president in charge of nuclear weapons, these doubters deserve a prompt and informed response: We “simply have not yet heard the horrible news.”
[1] The Devil in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman observes correctly that “Man’s heart is in his weapons….in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself…. when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanisms that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies….”
[2] The first Trump presidency expressed generalized “criminal intent” or mens rea. There are meaningful comparisons with earlier perversions of basic law in the Third Reich. Said Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in 1934: “”Whoever can conquer the street will one day conquer the state.” In 2019, even before his January 2021 insurrection, Donald Trump echoed this dark sentiment: “I have the support of the street, of the police, of the military, the support of Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough – until they go to a certain point and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
[3] See by this author, at Harvard National Security Journal: Louis René Beres, https://harvardnsj.org/2015/06/core-synergies-in-israels-strategic-planning-when-the-adversarial-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/
[4] For an analysis of deterring not-yet-nuclear adversaries in the case of Israel, see article co-authored by Professor Louis René Beres and (former Israeli Ambassador) Zalman Shoval at the Modern War Institute, West Point (Pentagon): https://mwi.usma.edu/creating-seamless-strategic-deterrent-israel-case-study/ Though not apt to represent a US nuclear crisis per se, any future hostilities between India and Pakistan could suddenly or incrementally draw in the United States. This is especially the case if China and/or Russia were involved.
[5] See AGREEMENT FOR THE PROSECUTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS OF THE EUROPEAN AXIS POWERS AND CHARTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL. Done at London, August 8, 1945. Entered into force, August 8, 1945. For the United States, Sept. 10, 1945. 59 Stat. 1544, 82 U.N.T.S. 279. The principles of international law recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal were affirmed by the U.N. General Assembly as AFFIRMATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW RECOGNIZED BY THE CHARTER OF THE NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL. Adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, Dec. 11, 1946. U.N.G.A. Res. 95 (I), U.N. Doc. A/236 (1946), at 1144. This AFFIRMATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW RECOGNIZED BY THE CHARTER OF THE NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL (1946) was followed by General Assembly Resolution 177 (II), adopted November 21, 1947, directing the U.N. International Law Commission to “(a) Formulate the principles of international law recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the judgment of the Tribunal, and (b) Prepare a draft code of offenses against the peace and security of mankind….” (See U.N. Doc. A/519, p. 112). The principles formulated are known as the PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW RECOGNIZED IN THE CHARTER AND JUDGMENT OF THE NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL. Report of the International Law Commission, 2nd session, 1950, U.N. G.A.O.R. 5th session, Supp. No. 12, A/1316, p. 11.
[6] Crimes against humanity are defined formally as “murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population before or during a war; or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated….” See Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Aug. 8, 1945, Art. 6(c), 59 Stat. 1544, 1547, 82 U.N.T.S. 279, 288.
[7] Thomas Hobbes, the 17th- century English philosopher, argues that the “state of nations” is the only true “state of nature,” that is, the only such “state” that actually exists in the world. In Chapter XIII of Leviathan (“Of the Natural Condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity, and Misery”), Hobbes says famously: “But though there had never been any time, wherein particular men were in a condition of war, one against the other, yet in all times, kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of their independence, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture of gladiators; having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another; that is their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their kingdoms, and continual spies upon their neighbors, which is a posture of war.”
[8] Dialectical thinking originated in Fifth Century BCE Athens, as Zeno, author of the Paradoxes, had been acknowledged by Aristotle as its inventor. In the middle dialogues of Plato, dialectic emerges as the supreme form of philosophic/analytic method. The dialectician, says Plato, is the “special one” who knows how to ask and then answer vital questions. From the standpoint of necessary refinements in US nuclear command authority, this knowledge ought never be taken for granted.
[9] “Intellect rots the brain” shrieked Joseph Goebbels at a Nuremberg Germany rally in 1935. “I love the poorly educated” echoed then American presidential candidate Donald Trump at a 2016 rally in the United States. Perhaps to authenticate his flaunted anti-intellectualism, Trump went on to propose household bleach as a Covid-19 treatment; urge the use of nuclear weapons against hurricanes; and praise American revolutionary armies in the 18th century for “gaining control of all national airports.”
[10] Since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, the idea of a law-based balance of power – an idea of which the nuclear-age balance of terror represents a current variant – has never been more than a facile metaphor. Treaty language notwithstanding, this idea has never had anything to do with ascertaining or maintaining any “true and just equilibrium.” As any such balance must be a matter of individual subjective perceptions, adversarial states can never be sufficiently confident that strategic circumstances of the moment are legally “balanced” in their favor. As each side must fear perpetually that it will be “left behind,” the corresponding search for balance can only produce ever-widening patterns of disequilibrium. History, of course, confirms such logic.
[11] On the plausible consequences of a nuclear war by this author, excluding any now pertinent synergies with a disease pandemic, see: Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Louis René Beres, Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1983); Louis René Beres, Reason and Realpolitik: U.S. Foreign Policy and World Order (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1984); Louis René Beres, Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1986); and Louis René Beres, Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).
[12] This intellectually barren sentiment was first made explicit by Mr. Trump immediately prior to his June 12, 2018 Singapore Summit with Kim Jung Un.
[13] On aggression as a specific crime under international law, see RESOLUTION ON THE DEFINITION OF AGGRESSION, Dec. 14, 1974, U.N.G.A. Res. 3314 (XXIX), 29 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No. 31) 142, U.N. Doc. A/9631, 1975, reprinted in 13 I.L.M. 710, 1974; and CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS, Art. 51. Done at San Francisco, June 26, 1945. Entered into force for the United States, Oct. 24, 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, T.S. No. 993, Bevans 1153, 1976, Y.B.U.N. 1043.
[14] United States law, as it was founded upon the learned jurisprudence of Sir William Blackstone, acknowledges, inter alia, a ubiquitous obligation of all states to help one another. More precisely, according to Blackstone, each state is expected “to aid and enforce the law of nations, as part of the common law, by inflicting an adequate punishment upon offenses against that universal law….” See: 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 4, “Of Public Wrongs.” Lest anyone ask about the significance of Blackstone for current US national security decision-making, one need only remind that the Commentaries were an original and core foundation of the laws of American law. To be sure, this plain fact remained altogether unknown to former US President Donald Trump and his less than learned counselors. Trump’s force-based policies of “America First” (illustrative of the fallacy known as argumentum ad bacculum) represented the diametric opposite of what Blackstone would have expected.
[15] We may consider here the timeless insight of French Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Phenomenon of Man (1959): “The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those who have managed to attain egoistically the extremity of `everyone-for-himself’ is false and against nature.” Originally published in French as Le Phénomene Humain (1955), Paris.
[16] This is because (1) any statement of authentic probability must be based upon the determinable frequency of pertinent past events and in this present case (2) there are no pertinent past events.
[17] See by this writer, Louis René Beres: https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2021/08/13/looking-back-at-the-trump-presidency-an-informed-retrospective/
[18] Significantly, the Founding Fathers of the United States were intellectuals. As explained by American historian Richard Hofstadter: “The Founding Fathers were sages, scientists, men of broad cultivation, many of them apt in classical learning, who used their wide reading in history, politics and law to solve the exigent problems of their time.” See Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964), p. 145.
[19] Dostoyevsky asks the most pertinent question: “What is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I’d say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened…Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.” See: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground 108 (Andrew R. MacAndrew, trans., New American Library, 1961) (1862).
[20] One of this author’s earliest books was (Louis René Beres) Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (The University of Chicago Press, 1980).
[21] Recalling philosopher Karl Jaspers: “The rational is not thinkable without its other, the non-rational, and it never appears in reality without it.” (See Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time, 1952).
[22] See Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal; 2 August 1950.
[23] As the Constitution represents the conspicuous bedrock of US domestic law, and because that document stipulates that only Congress can declare war, designated military decision-makers could argue credibly that their considered interference with certain Presidential nuclear commands would be law-enforcing.
[24] Nuclear strategic theorist Herman Kahn once introduced a subtle distinction between a surprise attack that is more-or-less unexpected and one that arrives “out of the blue.” The former, he counseled, “…is likely to take place during a period of tension that is not so intense that the offender is essentially prepared for nuclear war….” A total surprise attack, however, would be one without any immediately recognizable tension or warning signal. This particular subset of a surprise attack scenario could be difficult to operationalize for tangible national security policy benefit. See: Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s (Simon & Schuster, 1984).
[25] On “escalation dominance,” see recent article by Professor Louis René Beres at The War Room, US Army War College, Pentagon: https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/nuclear-decision-making-and-nuclear-war-an-urgent-american-problem/
[26] Anticipating 20th century Spanish thinker Jose Ortega y’Gasset (cited above), the seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal remarks prophetically in Pensées: “All our dignity consists in thought…It is upon this that we must depend…Let us labor then to think well: this is the foundation of morality.” Similar reasoning characterizes the writings of Baruch Spinoza, Pascal’s 17th-century contemporary. In Book II of his Ethics Spinoza considers the human mind, or the intellectual attributes, and – drawing further upon René Descartes – strives to define an essential theory of learning and knowledge.
[27] See, by this writer, Louis René Beres: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2021/04/louis-beres-north-korea-deterrence-denuclearization/
[28] The modern philosophic origins of “will” are discoverable in the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer, especially The World as Will and Idea (1818). For his own inspiration, Schopenhauer drew freely upon Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Later, Friedrich Nietzsche drew just as freely and perhaps more importantly upon Schopenhauer. Goethe was also a core intellectual source for Spanish existentialist Jose Ortega y’Gasset, author of the singularly prophetic twentieth-century work, The Revolt of the Masses (Le Rebelion de las Masas;1930). See, accordingly, Ortega’s very grand essay, “In Search of Goethe from Within” (1932), written for Die Neue Rundschau of Berlin on the centenary of Goethe’s death (Goethe died in 1832), It is reprinted in Ortega’s illuminating anthology, The Dehumanization of Art (1948) and is available from Princeton University Press (1968).
[29] This assumes, of course, that these “chain-of-command” presidential subordinates will prove equal to their extraordinary responsibilities.
[30] On America’s “Higher Law,” see, by this writer, Louis René Beres: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2017/07/Beres-president-trump-impeachment1/
[31] In authoritative studies of world politics, rationality and irrationality have now taken on very precise meanings. In this regard, a state is presumed to be rational to the extent that its leadership always values national survival more highly than any other conceivable preference or combination of preferences. Conversely, an irrational state is one that would not always display such a markedly specific preference ordering. On expressly pragmatic or operational grounds, ascertaining whether a particular state adversary such as Iran would be rational or irrational could become a problematic and even daunting task.
[32] The overarching issue here is inadvertent or accidental nuclear war. While an accidental nuclear war would also be inadvertent, there are forms of inadvertent nuclear war that would not necessarily be caused by mechanical, electrical or computer accident. These forms of unintentional nuclear conflict would be the unexpected result of misjudgment or miscalculation, whether created as a singular error by one or both sides to a particular (two-party) nuclear crisis escalation or by certain unforeseen “synergies” arising between any such singular miscalculations.
[33] Observed Sigmund Freud, in a lesser-known work on Woodrow Wilson: “Fools, visionaries, sufferers from delusions, neurotics and lunatics have played great roles at all times in the history of mankind, and not merely when the accident of birth had bequeathed them sovereignty. Usually, they have wreaked havoc.”
[34] In this context, law refers to both international and domestic law. These normative regulations are interpenetrating and mutually reinforcing. Recalling words used by the U.S. Supreme Court in The Paquete Habana, “International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as questions of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination. For this purpose, where there is no treaty, and no controlling executive or legislative act or judicial decision, resort must be had to the customs and usages of civilized nations.” See The Paquete Habana, 175 U.S. 677, 678-79 (1900). See also: The Lola, 175 U.S. 677 (1900); Tel-Oren v. Libyan Arab Republic, 726 F. 2d 774, 781, 788 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (per curiam) (Edwards, J. concurring) (dismissing the action, but making several references to domestic jurisdiction over extraterritorial offenses), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1003 (1985) (“concept of extraordinary judicial jurisdiction over acts in violation of significant international standards…embodied in the principle of `universal violations of international law.’”).
[35] At the same time, to act in proper conformance with pertinent international law (which is a part of US domestic or municipal law), any US president must continuously bear in mind the following: States are obliged to judge every use of force twice; once with regard to the underlying right to wage war (jus ad bellum) and once with regard to the means used in actually conducting a war (jus in bello). Following the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 and the United Nations Charter (1945) there can be no plausible right to wage an aggressive war. However, the long-standing customary right of post-attack self-defense remains codified at Article 51 of the UN Charter. Similarly, subject to conformance, inter alia, with jus in bello criteria, certain instances of humanitarian intervention and collective security operations may also be consistent with jus ad bellum. The law of war, the rules of jus in bello, comprise: (1) laws on weapons; (2) laws on warfare; and (3) humanitarian rules. Codified primarily at The Hague and Geneva Conventions, these rules attempt to bring discrimination, proportionality and military necessity into belligerent calculations.
[36] “The devil must lie in the details” in any such task, and the most plausible details should concern a cautiously thoughtful expansion of authoritative US nuclear decision-makers.
LOUIS RENÉ BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue. His twelfth and most recent book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (2016) (2nd ed., 2018) https://paw.princeton.edu/new-books/surviving-amid-chaos-israel%E2%80%99s-nuclear-strategy Some of his principal strategic writings have appeared in Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); International Security (Harvard University); Yale Global Online (Yale University); Oxford University Press (Oxford University); Oxford Yearbook of International Law (Oxford University Press); Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College (Pentagon); Special Warfare (Pentagon); Modern War Institute (Pentagon); The War Room (Pentagon); World Politics (Princeton); INSS (The Institute for National Security Studies)(Tel Aviv); Israel Defense (Tel Aviv); BESA Perspectives (Israel); International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; The Atlantic; The New York Times and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
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(Please note that the Sunday and Saturday NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS are also added below by category, following Monday’s news posts in order to maintain continuity of nuclear news as well as for research for the overall information provided in “LLAW;s All Things Nuclear”.)
There are 7 categories, with the latest addition, (#7) being a Friday weekly roundup of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) global nuclear news stories. Also included is a bonus non-nuclear category for news about the Yellowstone caldera and other volcanic and caldera activity around the world that play an important role in humanity’s lives. The feature categories provide articles and information about ‘all things nuclear’ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
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A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
TODAY’s NUCLEAR WORLD’s NEWS, Thursday, (01/23/2025)
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
Tractors, Forests, Nuclear Weapons: Five Things About Belarus | Barron’s
Barron’s
Belarus is holding a presidential election on Sunday that will secure another five-year mandate for Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power …
A Glowing Future with Nuclear (If Government Gets and Stays Out of the Way)
MacIver Institute
Nuclear power, and in particular Small Modular Reactors (SMR), is a critical need for the future to satisfy huge demands for energy driven by AI …
How Trump Can Counter Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions – FDD
FDD
Will Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei agree to nuclear negotiations with President Trump? According to the Justice Department, the cleric’s …
Nuclear Power
NEWS
South Carolina Utility Wants to Sell Unfinished Nuclear Power Site – The New York Times
The New York Times
The utility, Santee Cooper, is trying to sell two nuclear reactors that it abandoned in 2017 as tech companies seek new sources of electricity for …
Is nuclear energy the answer to AI data centers’ power consumption? – Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs
But nuclear can’t meet all of the increased data-center power needs. Natural gas, renewables, and battery technology will also have a role to play, …
Nuclear is necessary, hydrogen’s momentum has ebbed, Iberdrola’s Galan says | Reuters
Reuters
Nuclear energy in Europe is essential “for keeping the lights on” while hydrogen’s momentum “has already diminished”, the executive chairman of
Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
Trump Declares National Energy Emergency, Issues EOs – The National Law Review
The National Law Review
Here, we will outline the key Orders and what they mean for the state regulatory environment, generation mix and electric transmission construction.
Trump US energy emergency order should withstand court challenges | Reuters
Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national energy emergency to boost drilling and speed up pipeline construction should withstand …
Trump’s Energy and Border Emergencies Advance His Own Interests – The New York Times
The New York Times
In the energy sector, the emergency declaration gives him the authority to direct the government to expedite permitting of new oil and rilling …
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
Envoy to UN Warns of Threats Posed by Nuclear Weapons
kayhan.ir
LONDON (IRNA) — Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva Ali Bahreini has warned of threats posed by ..
Putin’s puppets demand a nuke launch in response to Trump’s ‘end this war‘ message
Daily Mail
… war in Ukraine or face tougher sanctions. Trump had qualified the threats by saying Putin, with whom he had ‘always had a very good relationship …
Trump 2.0 Rolls Another Israel Shocker; U.S. UN Nominee Testifies On War, Nuclear Threats | Watch
Times of India
Trump 2.0 Rolls Another Israel Shocker; U.S. UN Nominee Testifies On War, Nuclear Threats | Watch. TOI.in / Jan 22, 2025, 01:15PM IST. Presiden
Nuclear War
NEWS
U.N. Approves SGS-Backed Global Study of Nuclear War
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs – Princeton University
The United Nations will commission an international scientific study on the effects of nuclear war for the first time in more than three decades, …
Sen. Markey, Rep. Lieu Statement on President Trump Assuming Control of the Nuclear Football
Senator Edward Markey
Washington (January 22, 2025) — At noon on January 20, Donald Trump became the 47th President of the United States, and at that moment, …
Reconsidering Nuclear Command Authority: America’s Most Urgent Obligation – Modern Diplomacy
Modern Diplomacy
It’s high time for candor. President Donald J. Trump has effectively unchecked nuclear command authority. Though once inconceivable.
Yellowstone Caldera
NEWS
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory honors ranger, naturalist Marler – Buckrail
Buckrail
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — This week’s Caldera Chronicles from Yellowstone Volcano Observatory’s (YVO) Research Hydrologist Shaul Hurwitz honors …
World’s most active volcano begins 5th eruptive episode – MSN
MSN
Yellowstone Supervolcano: Where Will It Erupt Next? playIndicator. WooGlobe. Yellowstone Supervolcano: Where Will It Erupt Next? 54. 4. 15% or more …
