Under No Circumstances: August 9, 1945
Since February 2021, I have been posting weekly entries on nuclear weapon matters—history, technology, policy, and “secrets,” all from a more intimate angle—in You Might Want to Know on Substack. To see other entries, go to the Archive.
I believe that until we have looked this tiger in the eye, we shall be in the worst of all possible dangers, which is that we may back into him.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Today is the 80th anniversary of our dropping an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The bomb, which had been given the name “Fat Man,” was dropped by a B-29, a heavy bomber that had come into service only a year earlier. Today we still have heavy bombers and fighter-bombers configured to drop our much lighter nuclear bombs, but since 1960, our Air Force has also had intercontinental ballistic missiles. These ICBMs can deliver nuclear warheads to almost any target in the northern hemisphere in thirty minutes or so, considerably less if launched from Navy submarines closer to the targets.
Our ground-based ICBMs are controlled by missileers in underground Launch Control Centers at three large sites in the northcentral United States.
Let’s do a thought experiment.
Let’s say you are an Air Force missileer.
You are one of the 90 highly trained airmen (some of whom are women, the Air Force uses “airman” for both sexes) who are on alert now, and every hour of every day, in one of the underground Launch Control Centers that have immediate control over the 400 Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles the United States Air Force retains in underground silos. On what is often called “hair-trigger” alert.
Today, each Minuteman III missile is armed with a nuclear warhead that yields about 20 times what the Hiroshima bomb did. All together, then, the 400 Minuteman III missiles would yield 8000 Hiroshimas. (We won’t be considering here the many hundreds of thermonuclear weapons available to our bombers and in our submarines.)
There are two of you missileers in every underground Launch Control Center. That’s because of the “two-man rule” that obtains wherever nuclear weapons are being handled. In some situations, the airmen will be carrying side-arms so that if one airman goes around the bend, the other airman can shoot him or her.
The airmen in the Launch Control Centers are not armed. In order to launch the Minuteman missiles under their control, each has to insert into the console a key only he or she has access to, and the two keys—which in their keyholes would not be within reach of one missileer—have to be turned at the same moment. For there to be an unauthorized launch, both airmen would have to have gone around the bend and conspired to do it.
This is thought unlikely.
Let’s say now that the “warble-tone” alarm has gone off in the LCC and you have taken your seat at the console and checked the codes you’ve received that order you to launch your missiles and have “authenticated” the orders.
You can’t know for sure, understand, that the United States is now being attacked with intercontinental ballistic missiles. That’s because the alarm could be a false alarm, of which over the years there have been dozens. It could also be the result of a computer hack. You have no way to check.
Also, since 1945, the President of the United States has been the only person who can order the use of our nuclear weapons. You might, then, have received the launch order because the President had gone around the bend. You have no way to check on this either.
There’s no “two-man rule” when it comes to the President of the United States ordering the launch of nuclear weapons. Not at the moment.
Let’s assume, though, for this thought experiment, that the alarm is not a false alarm and the President had not gone round the bend when giving the order to launch our nuclear weapons.
Should you now put your key into your keyhole and, on the signal from your fellow missileer, turn it?
If you do, your work will be done. In minutes, the “birds” will be on their way. They can’t be called back. Now you just strap yourself into your chair, sit back, and wait.
Recently, the Human Security Lab at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and YouGov, a market research firm in the UK, did a survey of 750 ex-military and “military trained” people to find out what their attitudes were toward the use of nuclear weapons. (The report was summarized in an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of July 18, 2025.)
Forty-eight percent of respondents said nuclear weapons should be used only in “limited and extreme circumstances.” The report didn’t say what were thought to constitute such circumstances. In any case, in the Launch Control Center, you, the missileer, would have no way of finding out what were the “circumstances” that led to the order to launch. You would know only what your orders were.
Twenty-one percent of respondents said nuclear weapons should not be used under any circumstances. Does that surprise you? It did me. These were military people, trained to take orders. We aren’t told how many, if any, were ex-missileers.
Thirty-three percent said that the weapons should be used only if solely on military targets. Twenty-nine percent said they should be used only if there would be no radiological effect on civilians or the environment. Those people have to be counted with the “under no circumstances” group. As was shown in the attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the effects of nuclear weapons twenty times less powerful than the ones on the Minuteman III could not plausibly be restricted to military targets. Nor can nuclear weapons ever be prevented from having a radiological effect on civilians and the environment.
Here’s something that was an even bigger surprise to me. Eighty-three percent of these ex-military respondents said bombing a city with a nuclear bomb would be a war crime.
In war plans, cities are called “countervalue” (as opposed to “counterforce,” that is, military) targets. All along, the United States’ operational nuclear war plans have included “countervalue” targets. They do today.
Members of the military are supposed to obey orders, as you know. The Uniform Code of Military Justice says, however, that members of the military are not required to obey “unlawful” orders. In fact, they are required NOT to obey them. This principle emerged during the Nuremberg trials of Nazis after World War II. “I was just following orders” was disallowed as a defense.
Is an order to launch a missile armed with a nuclear warhead unlawful?
If we think this is arguable, where does the burden of proof lie?
It must lie upon those who want to argue that the use of nuclear weapons is lawful, mustn’t it? They, not we, and not the missileers ordered to launch the weapons, must produce any evidence that might show that the use of nuclear weapons would not violate existing laws of war that make it illegal to target civilians, or to respond to an attack in a way that would not be “proportional.”
If you, the missileer, chose NOT to turn your key, the question of whether it had been legal for you to refuse the order you’d received would likely arise only if the alarm had been a false alarm. The missileer’s superiors would probably have their noses out of joint. But if it had been a false alarm, and you had not turned your key, and you had gotten in trouble with your superiors, you still might be glad you hadn’t turned it. Not just because you would not have killed many thousands of innocent people but because of the harm that hadn’t been done to us back home in this country by the other side’s response to our attack.
In 1983, a Soviet lieutenant colonel named Stanislav Petrov declined to pass along to his superiors a warning he had received from Russia’s new satellite warning system of a missile attack incoming from the United States. He was convinced it was a false alarm, which it was. He was nonetheless reprimanded and assigned to a less sensitive post. He retired a year later and lived for many years in poverty.
Even though he had probably saved the world.
If the alarm you had received in the LCC had not been a false alarm, the question of whether you had a legal duty to turn or not to turn your key would probably never be brought up. After a massive nuclear attack, there would probably be more pressing concerns. Like finding a drink of water.
Let’s leave aside questions of legality for the moment. If the alarm was not a false alarm, what justification would you think might be offered for launching?
“Just following orders” is not available, as we’ve said.
Protect the country? What sense does that make? The “protection” thought to be provided by “deterrence” has, we are assuming, failed.
Exact revenge? The desire for revenge may understandably be present but revenge can be justified only if it might have the effect of deterring similar acts in the future. Acts like the one now already going on. So what future acts? A second massive attack with nuclear weapons? You think?
Spite can make us harm ourselves in order to be able to do harm to others. Launching spitefully in reply to a massive attack on us would of course harm those who had attacked us and not lessen the harm to us in this country. Would it increase the harm to us in this country and to the world at large by, for example, radiological effects and nuclear winter? Sure could.
Back to legality. You, the missileer, then, if you received an authenticated order to launch, could go ahead and turn your key and almost certainly not get into trouble with the higher ups. Legally, though, you wouldn’t be required to.
You might, in fact, be legally required not to.
In fact, your superior officers might also be legally required not to have ordered you to.
If that’s something anybody worries about.
It’s not clear anyone in charge really does.
Next: What We Weren’t Terrified Enough of Yet II