Following twitter and Facebook suspending Donald Trump’s accounts on the basis that he was using them to incite violence, CND asked how it can be that someone apparently too dangerous to use social media still has access to the nuclear codes.
Yesterday, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) issued a statement arguing that Trump’s provocation of violence at the US Capitol on Wednesday “highlights the risk inherent in having invested the sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons in the president.”
UCS is calling on the incoming Biden administration to place limits on the presidential authority to launch nuclear attacks, by requiring “two additional elected officials who are in the presidential line of succession to concur before the launch of a nuclear missile could proceed.”
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson commented:
‘Control over the ‘nuclear button’ means the power to wipe out tens of millions of people, and threaten human survival. That command of the United States’ nuclear weapons remains – for nearly two more weeks – solely in the hands of a man deemed too dangerous to use facebook should terrify us all.
But no one should be in a position to unleash such death and destruction. So while steps to place limits on the authority of the US president to launch a nuclear attack would be welcome, eliminating nuclear weapons altogether is the only way to protect global security and ensure human survival.’