2020 US Presidential Election

The Story Behind Joe Biden's "Amtrak Joe" Nickname

"It has provided me another family entirely," he's explained.

www.marieclaire.com

Former Vice President Joe Biden had gone by a number of nicknames before he officially became Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential election, but the one that he's probably most known for is "Amtrak Joe." It's been his primary mode of transportation to his work as a politician in Washington, D.C. and back home to Delaware, where he and his current wife reside. It started because of tragedy, but over time he became a huge proponent of trains during his time as a senator and subsequently vice president. It's become an indelible part of his life and work. So how did Joe become "Amtrak Joe," and why is it so significant to understanding who he is?

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Joel_F said:

Congratulations to Joe Biden. I really hope Donald Trump will be a good loser ...

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I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!

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Rudy Giuliani releases politics video pausing for a sponsored cigar commercial and blaming Fox News for Trump's defeat

In the YouTube series, entitled 'Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense,' Donald Trump's personal attorney discusses political issues and current affairs weekly.

www.businessinsider.com

Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's personal attorney, released a bizarre YouTube video on Friday, which featured him pounding his ink-covered hands on his desk, pausing to present a sponsored cigar commercial and declaring that Trump won the presidency.

Giuliani tells his viewers that Fox News suppressed the vote after it called Arizona for Joe Biden on election night. He cited no evidence for the claim that it affected voting.

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DarloRich said:

If Biden has won that is only stage one. Trump will try everything to obstruct and undermine the transition of power.

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JonasB said:

Crémant is even closer to Champagne than Cava, and there are some good ones that don't cost as much as Champagne.

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jamesheet49 said:

Not really enough of a majority for the referendum to have any legitimacy.

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dgl said:

Luckily, as I understand, he can be overruled in that respect.

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I’m in the process of writing up something more substantial about nuclear weapons and the 2016 Presidential election, but I keep getting asked one thing repeatedly both in person, over e-mail, and online: “Are there any checks in place to keep the US President from starting a nuclear war?”

What’s amazing about this question, really, is how seriously it misunderstands the logic of the US command and control system. It gets it exactly backwards.

A recent Tweet by the USAF expresses US nuclear doctrine in a nutshell: “Always on the ready is an understatement when you are providing #POTUS with the ability to launch ICBMs.” (November 17, 2016) Hat tip to Alexandra Levy of the Atomic Heritage Foundation for bringing this one to my attention.
The entire point of the US command and control system is to guarantee that the President and only the President is capable of authorizing nuclear war whenever he needs to. It is about enabling the President’s power, not checking or restricting him. As former Vice President Dick Cheney put it in 2008:

The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.

He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn’t have to check with anybody, he doesn’t have to call Congress, he doesn’t have to check with the courts.

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This isn’t new; it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. This has been discussed since the 1940s. And yet, people today seem rather shocked to hear it, even very educated people.

To be sure, the official doctrine that I have seen on the Nuclear Command Authority implies that the President should be given as much advice as possible from the military, the Department of Defense, and so on. But nothing I have seen suggests that this is any more than advisory — and the entire system is set up so that once the President’s order is verified and authenticated, there are meant to be only minutes until launch.

It isn’t entirely intuitive — why the President, and not someone else, or some combination of people? Why not have some kind of “two-man rule,” whereby two top political figures were required to sign off on the use before it happened? The two-man rule is required for commanders to authorize nuclear launches, so why not the Commander in Chief?

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Lastly, to get at the strongest of the responses: the president is the only person who can order nuclear weapons to be used, but doesn’t the execution of that order require assent from other people to actually get translated into action? In other words, if the president has to transmit the order to the Secretary of Defense (as some, but not all, descriptions of the process say has to occur), and the Secretary of Defense then has to transmit it to the military, and the military has to transmit it into operational orders for soldiers… aren’t there many places in that chain where someone can say, “hey, this is a terrible idea!” and not transmit the order further?

In thinking about this, I think we have to make a distinction between a legal and a practical hinderance. A legal hindrance would be the possibility of someone being able to say, legally and constitutionally, “I refuse to follow this order,” and that would stop the chain of command. This is mentioned in the 1970s literature on presidential authority as a form of “veto” power. It is not at all clear that this is legally allowable in the area of nuclear weapons — it is, to be sure, an ambiguous issue of constitutional, military, and international law. I have seen people assert that the use of nuclear weapons would be unquestionably a war crime, and so any officer who was given such an order would recognize it as an illegal order, and thus refuse to obey it. I don’t think the US government, or the US military, sees (American) use of nuclear weapons as a war crime (a topic for another post, perhaps), and whether you and I do or not matters not at all.

And from a practical standpoint, we know the system is set up so that the people at the very bottom, the people “turning the keys” and actually launching the missiles, are trained to not question (or even deeply contemplate) the orders that reach them. They are trained, rather explicitly, that if the order comes in, their job is to execute it — not quite like robots, but close-enough to that. The speed and reliability of the system requires these people to do so, and they are not in a position to inquire about the “big picture” behind the order (and would not presume to be qualified to evaluate that). So if we take that for granted, we might ask ourselves, at what level in the hierarchy would people be asking about that? One can imagine a lot of different possibilities, ranging from a continuum of second-guessing that was fairly evenly gradated towards the “top,” or one that was really “band-limited” to the absolute top (e.g., once the order gets made by the president, it is followed through on without questioning).

I suspect that even the military is not 100% sure of the answer to that question, but I suspect that the situation is much more like the latter than the former. Primarily because, again, the US military culture, especially regarding nuclear weapons, is about deference to the authority of the Commander in Chief. Once you get beyond a certain “circle” of people who are close to the president, like the Secretary of Defense, I would be very surprised if the people in the nuclear system in particular would buck the order. The system and its culture was built during the cold war, focused on rapid translation between order and execution. Until I see evidence that suggests it has radically transformed itself since then, I am going to assume it acts in that way still. And again, everything I have seen suggests that this is still the case. As former CIA and NSA head Michael Hayden put it before the election: “It’s scenario dependent, but the system is designed for speed and decisiveness. It’s not designed to debate the decision.”

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The President and the Bomb

Why asking whether there are checks on the US President's ability to order a nuclear attack gets the issue exactly backwards.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

The President and the Bomb: Redux

Yes, the president has the unilateral authority to order nuclear strike; yes, there is something we can do about that if that disturbs you.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

The President and the Bomb, Part III

New sources further illuminate the tricky issue of the nuclear chain of command.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

The President and the Bomb, Part IV

Why the problem of "the President and the bomb" isn't about the "crazy President," but something far more pernicious and possible.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

brad465 said:

I'm expecting large parts of our Government to be falling all over themselves and possibly even having to forfeit future political careers as a result of this: the way some of them attacked Biden recently, as well as their behaviour over Brexit so far and disregard for Ireland won't sit well with the new US administration (I imagine most of this is obvious).

Johnson was likely to be on his way out anyway, but this is has all but sealed his fate; the Tory party won't want him to even think about talking to Biden, given for him the Democrats shaming/ignoring Johnson will only make us look like more of a laughing stock. It was quite telling how they refused to say anything about some of Trump's anti-democratic behaviour/ranting of recent days (to criticise him on this was never interference, just standing up for democratic principles).

Furthermore, some of the other things other key parts of Government have said either criticising Biden or supporting Trump (in particular really trying to cosy up to the latter without thinking about the concept of Biden winning), will mean if the Tory party are to survive and stand a chance of going into the next election not looking like the most incompetent lot standing, they'll want to try and create a new look that will better work with the US administration.

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ainsworth74 said:

Comforting thought though it maybe the legal position is pretty much no he can't be. The President has sole launch authority of United States nuclear weapons. He does not have to get his order authorised by anyone, he doesn't have to consult anyone, he doesn't have to seek the advice of anyone. The decision rests solely in his hands. Indeed the entire nuclear command and control infrastructure is designed not to question the order, it's lawfulness or indeed whether it's sensible or not. It is entirely designed to ensure that the President and only the President (or their successor in the event the President is killed) can give a launch order and then to communicate and act on that order as quickly as possible.

Now, that is the legal position. Of course practically you would hope that the Secretary of Defence (a civilian) and/or the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the most senior military personnel) would advise against and possible even refuse such an order (though the Secretary of Defence is not in the nuclear chain of command so their refusal means nothing). But if the order is given and is not obviously crazy (so a President picking up the phone out of the blue and saying "launch everything right now!" will probably find their order refused) there is no formal barrier and indeed the enter system is designed not to question but to act. It is likely that once an order passes the Joint Chiefs it's going to be executed without any further pause.

A gentlemen called Alex Wallerstein who studies history of nuclear weapons and is professor at US university (also the creator of the interesting Nukemap website) has written a few blog posts on this subject, from which I've basically provided a very abridged version above. I link the four parts below but here is an extract from the first part introducing the topic and an extract from the second which I think gets the heart of the matter:

The President and the Bomb

Why asking whether there are checks on the US President's ability to order a nuclear attack gets the issue exactly backwards.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

The President and the Bomb: Redux

Yes, the president has the unilateral authority to order nuclear strike; yes, there is something we can do about that if that disturbs you.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

The President and the Bomb, Part III

New sources further illuminate the tricky issue of the nuclear chain of command.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

The President and the Bomb, Part IV

Why the problem of "the President and the bomb" isn't about the "crazy President," but something far more pernicious and possible.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

It might be comforting to think that there is some check or balance against a President giving what is clearly a bad or even insane order to launch nuclear weapons but realistically there is no such block. Now the likelihood is that if Trump decided tomorrow that he wanted to nuke China as revenge for some perceived insult then the Joint Chiefs would probably refuse the order as being obviously insane. But there is no guarantee and there is every chance that they would just do what they are required and transmit the order.

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Scotrail314209 said:

I highly doubt Trump would actually use the nukes, that'd just be a very stupid move on his part. But it is scary to think that he could do something like that which puts us all in trouble.

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birchesgreen said:

Not a very good business man

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Arglwydd Golau said:

Did I hear Joe Biden correctly on the BBC evening news? A reporter shouted something like 'May I have a word, Mr Biden, I'm from the BBC'....Biden turned round and smiled 'The BBC? I'm Irish'....That could be interesting, or maybe I'm reading too much into it (or misheard as I wasn't really paying attention)

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Arglwydd Golau said:

Did I hear Joe Biden correctly on the BBC evening news? A reporter shouted something like 'May I have a word, Mr Biden, I'm from the BBC'....Biden turned round and smiled 'The BBC? I'm Irish'....That could be interesting, or maybe I'm reading too much into it (or misheard as I wasn't really paying attention)

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RichT54 said:

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Tom Maddox said:

Nothing more than an attempt at humour I would imagine given he also has English heritage on his father’s side.

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yorksrob said:

Indeed. I'm sure boring old diplomacy will kick in at some time (I assume he didn't add the soundtrack )

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Tom Maddox said:

I’m sure it will although I wouldn’t mind if Biden approached the Presidency in the same way Obama did with a light bit of humour thrown in every now and again.

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Tom Maddox said:

I’m sure it will although I wouldn’t mind if Biden approached the Presidency in the same way Obama did with a light bit of humour thrown in every now and again.

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Scotrail314209 said:

I highly doubt Trump would actually use the nukes, that'd just be a very stupid move on his part. But it is scary to think that he could do something like that which puts us all in trouble.

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A much more probable scenario for US nuclear first use, for me, looks like this: a crisis builds in a region where there have historically been crises. There are legitimate security threats from and in that region. Something happens that pushes the President to want to respond with something “big.” The military gives him their standard three options (something bland, something insane, something sensible) with the hope it will force a sensible choice. Sound familiar so far? This is what the reporting on the Suleimani assassination says actually happened.

At this point we ask, would “the extreme option” ever be something like a nuclear attack? I very much doubt that it would be what most people think a nuclear option would look like (“wipe country X off the map”). Aside from being unambiguously a war crime (even by the quite flexible standards used by the military to evaluate strikes as war crimes), it just doesn’t match with my perception of how the military (from what little I know of them) think about how nuclear weapons might be plausibly used. So I don’t worry about that.

Could the “extreme option” be, “use a low-yield, high-accuracy nuclear weapon against an underground, unambiguously military site, that is relatively isolated from civilians?” Now we’re getting much more plausible. Most people, I think, would not consider something like this to be a good idea — we’re trained, rightly or wrongly, to see nuclear weapons as being inherently “large,” as things that necessarily kill many civilians, and that any first use would spiral out of control. Whether those things are true or not, there are plenty of analysts in academia, think tanks, and the military itself who do not see things this way. They believe nuclear escalation can be avoided, that nukes could just be another tool for the job, and that a low-yield, high-accuracy nuclear weapon (like the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, or the proposed Low-Yield Trident) would be useful not only as deterrents for tactical weapon use by another nation (which is to say, Russia), but as tools for both sending a big-but-not-crazy message and for destroying deeply fortified underground facilities.

...

So, to return to the thread, could a low-yield nuclear strike be included among the “extreme” options in such a hypothetical scenario? I think the answer is maybe, though I would still put that as unlikely — but it’s going to depend who draws up the menu of options. As we’ve seen in the last few years, the assumption that high-profile policymakers are all qualified for their positions, are not zealots, do not have views widely out of line with any form of consensus politics, etc., is totally unwarranted. So it’s possible, though it would be extreme indeed.

But what if, during this same set of options, someone whispers into the President’s ear, “what if we did that plan I mentioned the other day?” That is, what if there was a senior White House advisor who somehow got it into their head that a low-yield nuclear weapon would be a good idea, had talked about it previously to the President, and then injected it into the discussion? Might the President bring it up himself? And in that context, would the generals go along with it?

I have little doubt that the generals would probably try to persuade the President that this was a bad idea. I suspect the President’s senior cabinet would also try to do so, though I am less certain about this. But what if the President insisted on the nuclear option?

This isn’t a “crazy President” situation. This is a “the President is advocating for something that there are actually many rational arguments in favor of, in a context that might plausibly justify it” situation. That doesn’t mean it’s not a bad idea, one that could lead to a lot of long-term grief for the United States. But there’s a difference between a “bad order” and “an order that can be legally disobeyed.”

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yorksrob said:

Indeed. I'm sure boring old diplomacy will kick in at some time (I assume he didn't add the soundtrack )

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birchesgreen said:

Not a very good business man

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Cowley said:

I’m sure that he will.

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