Straight news: On Friday, U.S. House speaker and Democrat Pelosi told the media that she discussed with the military the issue of preventing US President Trump from launching a nuclear attack. In less than two weeks of his presidency, is Trump really capable of doing such a groundbreaking thing, as Pelosi claims?
Special Commentator Sinan Zhang: This is a good question, not to talk about whether Trump wants to or not, let's say that in terms of technical processes, does Trump have the unchecked power to launch a nuclear strike at any time?
Under the current U.S. system, the president has the sole right to launch nuclear weapons, and that power does not need to be verified by anyone. The president's entourage is accompanied by an adjutant who carries a special communication tool commonly known as the "nuclear football," or "nuclear rugby," which allows him to launch a nuclear strike anytime, anywhere.
The system was designed in the wake of the U.S.-Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis, when there was widespread concern at the top of the U.S. hierarchy that the president would have only "minutes" to respond to a massive Soviet nuclear strike. The only restriction on the launch of nuclear weapons through "nuclear rugby" is that the president must verify with the secretary of defense using a card commonly known as a "cookie", and the order is issued by the president himself. The defense minister can only verify the authenticity of the order, and cannot legally veto the president's order, because the U.S. military's chain of command must assume that "the president is competent and will not launch a nuclear strike at will."
On the other hand, we have seen US media outlets, including the Washington Post, CNN, CBS and others, claim that if the president's order is illegal, the military has an obligation to say no. In most cases, the president's orders need to be forwarded step by step, eventually down to someone turning a key or pressing a button to launch a nuclear weapon, in the process, and in the process, military personnel from all levels below the secretary of defense are indeed capable of disobeying.
As the last U.S. Strategic Command commander, Gen. Hayteng, said in 2017 when Trump threatened to use nuclear weapons against North Korea, he would try to persuade the president to dismiss the idea if he thought a nuclear strike ordered by the president was illegal.
But note, what I just said is "most of the time", because according to public information, "nuclear rugby" has a preset attack plan, from firing a cruise missile with a nuclear warhead at a fixed coordinate to launching all intercontinental missiles, so that the president can technically bypass all the military personnel trying to stop it.
In addition, the U.S. military does not encourage front-line officers and soldiers to question the orders of their superiors, for a simple reason, as described in the movie "Red Tide Storm", nuclear military forces in a state of readiness, such as officers and soldiers on ballistic missile nuclear submarines, have no way of distinguishing whether the order of a nuclear strike is illegal or the last hope to save the country. And if soldiers develop a tradition of guessing layer by layer about the legitimacy of superior orders, the entire chain of command collapses.
In fact, in 1973 U.S. Air Force Colonel Harold Herring was fired from the military for asking the question, "How do I know that the nuclear missile launch order I received came from a sane president." So for this technical question, the answer is that Trump has almost unchecked power to launch a nuclear strike at any time, as long as he is still president, he can launch if he wants, and no one can stop him.
Straight news: The "nuclear rugby" system has been born for nearly half a century, after more than 10 presidents, why is it that in the current Trump term, especially in the last two weeks of his term, the question of the president's abuse of nuclear strike power has been boiling over, Trump, as Pelosi and others have said, is a "mad king"?
Special Commentator Sinan Zhang: First of all, Trump is not the first president to be questioned of abusing the power of nuclear strikes, in 1973 US Air Force Colonel Harold Herring's sentence "How do I know that the nuclear missile launch order I received came from a sane president" was bashed on then-President Nixon, but this is not the question I want to discuss today.
Second, whether Trump is a "mad king", the answer is yes and no. Before Trump, no one would have imagined that the president of the United States could challenge the world order concluded by his predecessors, that lincoln and Reagan's party would be born, that a president who would openly support white supremacy would be born in the 21st century, and that no one would one day be able to instigate a blatant "coup" against the democratic system that empowered him.
Trump's madness is unquestionable, which is why when Pelosi claimed to have discussed with the military how to prevent Trump from launching a nuclear strike, the US media, after an initial sense of absurdity, quickly and calmly accepted the news, because Pelosi's concerns seemed "very necessary".
However, the US media has paid little attention, why did Trump launch a nuclear strike? A pot end of the Democratic Party headquarters? Or will it be a solution to The North Korea, Iran, and Russia issues once and for all in the final days of his term? It is conceivable that even the lowest-scale nuclear strike, such as the use of tactical nuclear weapons, will inevitably provoke an extremely violent reaction from the whole world, not to mention a counterattack from the remaining nuclear-armed States.
Trump always needs to have a reasonable motive and purpose in doing so. Trump may be a cruel tactician, a selfish egoist, but he is by no means an antisocial personality maniac. He is already paving the way for life after leaving the White House, as evidenced by the news from his close attendants in the past few days that the president is actively seeking amnesty for himself.
Trump is far from the crazy state of pulling the world to accompany him to the funeral, but in fact he has been crucified by the Democratic Party to the position of "mad king" of "after I die, what flood will be terrible". Pelosi's rhetoric is simple: If Trump can incite people to put pressure on the election results, why wouldn't he use nuclear weapons to threaten democracy? Since the U.S. "nuclear rugby" system itself does not do anything to verify whether the president who issued the order is actually sane, then Trump's threat of insanity is real and worth taking seriously, and it does not matter whether the "mad king" is really crazy or not.
And the final landing point of all this is to invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove the "Mad King" from the presidency. Some people will ask, why is the Democratic Party so troublesome, after 11 days, Trump's presidential power will automatically be suspended, and then Biden will not be sworn in? Not entirely, the Far-reaching goal of democrats crucifying Trump to the "Mad King" pillar of shame in his final moments is to find a way out for Biden if he is not in power for the next four years. Succeeding a "Mad King" and removing a "Mad King" from power have very different political significance.
Maybe one day, in the face of disgruntled people, the Biden administration can confidently say, "If it weren't for us, you would still be living under Trump's tyranny, and if it wasn't for us, you would even be living under the threat of nuclear weapons." With the sentence "Or are you going to choose the successor of the 'Mad King' to come to power", the disgruntled American people may have to lose their teeth and swallow blood, silently endured.
Trump's Twitter page has been shown as "Account deactivated"
Straight News: On Friday, local time, Twitter permanently banned Trump's social accounts on the grounds that it is "likely to further incite violence".
Special Commentator Zhang Sinan: The Democratic Party's move is intended to weaken his huge influence in American society in a one-size-fits-all manner by taking advantage of Trump's incitement to fail in the "coup" and fall into the downwind.
First, the siege of the Capitol on January 6 proved to everyone that Trump's Twitter account of 88 million followers not only has a huge influence on American political opinion, but can also be transformed into a considerable degree of grassroots mobilization ability, in a bottom-up way to impact the rules of the game that control the hands of professional politicians. And this point is not only feared by the Democratic Party, after this storm, some Republicans also clearly realized that Trump's influence has been anti-Republican itself, "the leaders of the Republican Party are betraying the Republican Party."
The second is to ban Trump's Twitter account, in the short term, the Democratic Party will be an absolute beneficiary, in the long run or self-defeating. As far as electoral politics in the United States is concerned, Trump represents the entire Republican Party almost single-handedly. Previous intra-party polls showed Trump's approval rating was as high as 93 percent. Banning Trump's Twitter account is also equivalent to paralyzing the Grassroots media tentacles of the Republican Party in a sense, and the resulting huge public opinion vacuum will give the Democratic Party a valuable period of strategic opportunity.
But at the same time, Trump will not sit still. On Friday, the night the account was blocked, Trump said Twitter was committed to building a "radical left" platform, and he would negotiate with the rest of the social platforms and even consider building "his own platform."
It is conceivable that Trump will lead a large number of his online supporters to a more radical and closed platform. Twitter deleted Trump's account, but it can never physically delete Trump's supporters. Democrats will be isolated from them in a new dimension, further losing their influence on them.
You know, that's probably nearly half of the U.S. population. According to the 2020 election statistics, Trump received 73.92 million votes, a full 10 million more than when he was elected in 2016; and his national vote rate is about 47.2%, which means that Trump has nearly half of the public support in the United States. In the long run, with the transfer of Trump supporters in cyberspace and the further polarization of the political spectrum, the phenomenon of parallel space in the US public opinion field will further intensify, and the division and confrontation in the social atmosphere will further deteriorate. That wouldn't be good news for Biden, who is about to enter the White House.
The third observation is where the Republican Party will go after the parties have tried to exhaust the dagger. I have previously pointed out that in the next 4 years, even if he does not hold the presidency, Trump will be the de facto "invisible president" of the Republican Party, and republicans in the unified Congress will oppose Biden. By 2024, even if Trump does not run, the new presidential candidate representing the Republican Party will either be similar to Trump or personally endorsed by Trump himself.
Although not a few Republicans have sharply criticized Trump since the Capitol riots, such as Senators Ben Sass and Romney, who accused Trump of instigating a "coup," Republican leaders in both chambers have remained rather silent. Meanwhile, more than 140 Republican members questioned the outcome of the election that day, a figure that already accounts for more than two-thirds of the total number of Republican seats. It's a very interesting phenomenon that Trump has broken the Republican line to the point of no return, but the Republican Party seems to have fallen into collective silence for some kind of institutionalized expression of self-interest.
This makes me think that four years ago, when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, many people said, "Trump's victory is the victory of the American democratic system", which means that "even the most mediocre leaders, the American system can ensure the development of the United States, smooth and not subject to twists and turns." And today I want to respond with a quote from James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, that without good people, no matter how good the power system is, it is meaningless.