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It’s Seriously Time to Dismantle the U.S. ICBM Arsenal
It’s 1 a.m. and the President of the United States is sleeping soundly beside the First Lady in the residential wing of the White House.
Suddenly, an Air Force officer bursts into the room carrying the nuclear “football,” an aluminum case containing the launch codes for the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.
The officer tells the President that U.S. satellites have detected a Russian launch of approximately 200 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at the United States; enough to incinerate every major U.S. city.
The Council on Foreign Relations has calculated that the President would have less than 10 minutes to decide whether to fire America’s land-based ICBMs at Russia in retaliation.
According to Bruce Blair, a Princeton specialist on nuclear disarmament, “it is a case of use or lose them.”
The President must make a snap decision because the fixed, land-based U.S. missile silos are known to the Russians. This would most certainly make them a target in the first wave of a nuclear strike.
Perhaps most terrifying, once they are launched, there is no recall button or self-destruct.
Once airborne there can be only one result — the deaths of millions of humans.
