Nuclear Command and Statutory Control

• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020

Nuclear Command and Statutory Control

Dakota S. Rudesill*

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

I. THREE ENDURING NUCLEAR NIGHTMARES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

A. Nuclear Nightmare Number One: Initiated or Temporally

Imminent Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

B. Nuclear Nightmares Two and Three: Rogue President, and

Precipitous President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

II. NUCLEAR-CONVENTIONAL CONVERGENCE & THE NATIONAL

LEADERSHIP-LEVEL REVIEW GAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

A. The Most Likely Nuclear Employment Scenario. . . . . . . . . . . 383

B. Operational Planning and Lawyering Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

III. THE CASE FOR PROCESS – AND A PROCESS STATUTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

A. The Value of Deliberation and Inter-Agency Process . . . . . . 388

B. Implementation: The Need for a Statute. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

IV. THE STRENGTHENED CASE FOR THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF STATUTORY

RULES FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

A. Reform Should Not be Dissuaded by the Constitutional

Conversation to Date. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

1. Cold War-era Statutory Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

2. Claims that Nuclear Weapons are Constitutionally Special 398

B. Separated and Shared Powers Over Nuclear Weapons . . . . . 400

C. Firmer Footing for Nuclear Rule Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

1. Change in the International Security Environment . . . . . 407

* Associate Professor, Moritz College of Law, and Senior Fellow, Mershon Center for International

Security Studies, The Ohio State University. This article draws on insights from several scholarly fields

as well as the expertise of military leaders and policymakers. I thank colleagues with each of these

perspectives for stimulating conversations or commenting on drafts: Justin Anderson, James E. Baker,

Robert Chesney, Dan Chiu, Geoffrey Corn, Mary DeRosa, Brian Egan, Ned Foley, Steve Huefner,

General Robert Kehler (ret.), David Koplow, David Kris, Hans Kristensen, Major General Tim

McMahon (ret.), Debby Merritt, Mark Nevitt, Deborah Pearlstein, Brad Roberts, Peter Shane, Daniel

Tokaji, Rachel VanLandingham, Matthew Waxman, Amy Woolf, and other Ohio State colleagues. I

also thank participants at the Duke-Virginia Foreign Relations Roundtable, at the Legislation

Roundtable held at Yale Law School, and at conferences and workshops hosted by Stanford University’s

Center for International Security and Cooperation, Georgetown University Law Center, the University

of Nebraska School of Law, the Journal of National Security Law and Policy, the U.S. Strategic

Command, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. For support for this research project I

thank the Moritz College of Law and its Center for Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies (CILPS).

For research assistance I thank Billy Braff, Krystina Garabis, Alyson Houk, Brandon Miller, Patrick

Ojeil, Erin Reinke, Thomas Rovito, Alex Thierer, and Michael Walsh. I thank the editors of the Journal

for their diligent work amid all the disruptions of a global pandemic. I am responsible for all content and

any errors. The views expressed here are mine and do not imply endorsement by any U.S. Government

agency. © 2021, Dakota S. Rudesill.

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2. Post-9/11 Wartime Supreme Court Precedents . . . . . . . . 407

3. Special Statutes: Covert Action and FISA . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

V. MAKING NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATUTORILY SPECIAL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

A. The Nuclear Forces Control Act (NFCA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

1. Purposes and Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

2. Restrictions on Force and Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

3. Reporting Requirements and Norm Building . . . . . . . . . 418

4. Protecting the Statute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

B. Potential Objections and Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

1. Potential Objections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

2. Potential Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427

APPENDIX: DRAFT STATUTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

INTRODUCTION

Acquiescence to a claim of expansive executive authority, U.S. Supreme Court

Justice Robert Jackson famously warned, allows that power to become “a loaded

weapon” available for use or abuse.

1

The nuclear weapons over which the

President has all but complete power are, however, not metaphorical. More than

500 global-range U.S. ballistic missiles are continually in alert postures, cocked

and loaded with over 1,000 thermonuclear warheads.

2

Hundreds more warheads

can be loaded onto aircraft and other missiles.

3

As all three branches of govern-

ment and the public have allowed for 75 years, the President need only reach for

the phone or the nuclear “football” to order a nuclear attack at any time, without

anyone’s authorization or second vote.

4

After decades of inertia, the nation has resumed a conversation about nuclear com-

mand and control that has been dormant since the Cold War’s end 30 years ago.

5

1. See Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 246 (1944) (Jackson, J., dissenting). All three

branches of government have repudiated the race-based deprivation of liberty at issue in Korematsu and

ratified at that time by the Court majority. See Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S.Ct. 2392, 2423 (2018)

(“Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided.. .”).

2. The “cocked and loaded” terminology is that of President Trump regarding U.S. conventional

capabilities for a potential strike on Iran. See Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump), TWITTER (June 21,

2019, 9:03 AM), https://perma.cc/H7QP-T9XB. It applies equally well to the U.S. nuclear posture:

nuclear-armed global range ballistic missiles on land and at sea in alert postures. The numbers above are

based on Kristensen & Korda, adjusted downward due to a portion of the sea-based ballistic missile

force being on submarines in port or otherwise not in firing position. See Hans M. Kristensen & Matt

Korda, United States Nuclear Forces 2019, 75 BULL. ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 122 (2019). U.S. submarine-

launched ballistic missiles carry many warheads – multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles

(MIRVs) – and U.S. land-based missiles could re-upload them. For discussion, see Dakota S. Rudesill,

MIRVs Matter: Banning Hydra-Headed Missiles in a New START II Treaty, 54 STAN. J. INT’L L. 83

(2018) (arguing for treaty limiting MIRVs).

3. See U.S. DEP’T OF DEF., NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW 41–48 (2018) [hereinafter 2018 NPR].

4. The nuclear “football,” containing nuclear weapons information and secure communications

equipment, has been at the President’s side in one form or another since the 1960s.

5. At the end of the Cold War scholarly, practitioner, and public attention to nuclear command and

control sharply declined. For engagement near the end of the Cold War, see, e.g., MANAGING NUCLEAR

366 JOURNAL OF NATIONAL SECURITY LAW & POLICY [Vol. 11:365

The Defense Department, Congress, the nuclear policy community, legal scholars,

and the public are engaged.

6

Presidential candidates have debated a U.S. “no first use”

policy.

7

Frequently, the nuclear command and control debate returns to a dilemma. A

primary virtue of the system’s legal, decision process, and technology architecture is

also a potential liability: concentration of discretion to use the world’s most destructive

weapons in one person. What could enable timely presidential decision in the classic

nuclear nightmare of an adversary nuclear attack may permit other nightmares: an

unwarranted launch order, or a precipitous order where the necessity and legality of

the strike are questionable and the President has bypassed advisors and ignored perti-

nent fact and law.

Nuclear command and control is getting renewed attention because the possi-

bility of U.S. use of nuclear weapons may be rising.

8

Russia has revived as a geo-

political adversary of the United States, which withdrew from a landmark nuclear

arms treaty in August 2019 after Russian violations.

9

China and North Korea

Operations (Ashton B. Carter, John D. Steinbruner & Charles A. Zraket, eds., 1987) (non-legal scholars,

policy experts, and civilian and military practitioners analyze policy, military, technology, arms control,

and psychological issues); FIRST USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: UNDER THE CONSTITUTION, WHO

DECIDES? (Peter Raven-Hansen, ed. 1987) (legal scholarship on law and nuclear weapons). After the

Soviet Union’s demise, law professors stopped writing on the subject. Cf., ELAINE SCARRY,

THERMONUCLEAR MONARCHY: CHOOSING BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND DOOM (2014) (professor of

English argues that nuclear command and control system is unconstitutional). Several law students

wrote related Notes.

6. See Sandra Erwin, U.S. STRATCOM to Take Over Responsibility for Nuclear Command, Control

and Communications, SPACENEWS (July 23, 2018), https://perma.cc/ZPZ9-DWLD (describing changes

in system’s organization regarding communications); Jon. B. Wolfstahl (@JBWolfstahl), TWITTER

(Dec. 10, 2018, 5:49 PM), https://perma.cc/K6ZH-N45T (Secretary of Defense James Mattis reportedly

“inserted himself into the nuclear weapons chain of command”); Bruce G. Blair, Strengthening Checks

on Presidential Nuclear Launch Authority, ARMS CONTROL TODAY (Jan. / Feb. 2018), https://perma.cc/

9FGF-W4KD (calling for checks on presidential launch authority); S. 272, 116th Cong. (2019)

(legislation introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) stating “It is the policy of the United States to

not use nuclear weapons first”); Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017, H.R. 669, 115th

Cong. (2017) (legislation introduced by Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA)); Restricting First Use of Nuclear

Weapons Act of 2017, S. 200, 115th Cong. (2017) (legislation introduced by Sen. Ted Markey (D-MA));

Authority to Order the Use of Nuclear Weapons: Hearing Before the S. Comm. on Foreign Relations,

115th Cong. 22 (2017) [hereinafter SFRC 2017 Hearing] (first congressional hearing on nuclear

command and control since 1976); Anthony J. Colangelo & Peter Hayes, An International Tribunal for

the Use of Nuclear Weapons, 2 J. PEACE & NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT 219 (2019) (arguing for

international tribunal to hold military officers accountable for illegal nuclear launch orders); Richard K.

Betts & Matthew C. Waxman, The President and the Bomb: Reforming the Nuclear Launch Process, 97

FOR. AFF. 119 (2018) (recommending the Secretary of Defense and Attorney General must confirm a

nuclear launch order and its legality). See also the interdisciplinary conferences mentioned supra note *,

which have included legal scholars.

7. See S. 272, 116th Cong. (2019). (Sen. Warren legislation); Bruce Blair & Jon Wolfsthal, We Still

Can’t ‘Win’ a Nuclear War. Pretending We Could Is a Dangerous Fantasy, WASH. POST (Aug. 1, 2019,

1:55 PM), https://perma.cc/N7TX-FACE (Sen. Warren argues for “no first use”).

8. See Ernest Moniz & Sam Nunn, The Return of Doomsday: The New Nuclear Arms Race – and

How Washington and Moscow Can Stop It, 98 FOR. AFF. 150 (2019) (risk of nuclear employment

highest since Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962).

9. See Hans M. Kristensen & Matt Korda, Russian Nuclear Forces 2019, 75 BULL. ATOMIC

SCIENTISTS 73, 82 (2019) (Russia modernizing nuclear forces); Ilya Arkhipov, Putin Warns U.S. of New

Arms Race After Nuclear Deal’s Collapse, BLOOMBERG (Aug. 5, 2019, 9:23 AM), https://perma.cc/

MT9D-H5WE (United States withdrawal from 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty

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