Danger Signal !

The only problem with the "  Presidential " form of government is the immense power put in the hands of the person who attains that high office.   When that country is a nuclear power there is a myth that there is a button on the President's desk which - if pressed - would deliver annihilation on a world  scale.

It is perfectly true that at all times the United States President is accompanied by an officer tasked with guarding what is known as " the football ", which is the code which authorises the firing of that country's nuclear missiles, and the President is the only person who has the authority to activate that action.

In the many decades since the end of the second world war and the coming of the nuclear age that responsibility has not been questioned.   There has always been the assumption that the person who attains the presidency would be a person of high moral standard who would not take the launching of a nuclear strike lightly.

In fact, the presence of a nuclear strike in the hands of the five initial countries sharing the ability to kill million of people has preserved the peace and prevented a third world war.  There have been plenty of proxy wars but sanity has prevailed when tensions have risen.   A nuclear war has been virtually unthinkable in this day and age.

That was before Donald Trump gained the US Presidency.   This president has threatened North Korea with nuclear oblivion and the North Korean leader has openly boasted of his country launching a nuclear strike on an American city.   There are times when Donald Trump's rhetoric worries the world because his thinking lacks clarity.  There is a chance that a nuclear exchange may happen by accident.

This week just that danger provoked the American Air Force General heading the US  Strategic Command ( STRATCOM ) which would have the task of putting American missiles into flight to question whether such an order would be obeyed.   It raises the question of whether such an order from the President would achieve legal status - and that raises a fresh danger.

When the American armed forces question the sanity of their Commander in Chief it opens the opportunity for third party countries to introduce mischief.  World religious differences can be an incentive to provoke one nation against another in the hope that they be weakened to allow a third entity to benefit.  In a world where the identity of missiles fired from submarines can not be an instantly known source all sorts of intrigue is possible.

It will certainly bring comfort to nations opposed to the United States to know that any firing order from the President will be at least questioned rather than instantly obeyed.  Missile flight times are such than even a slight delay in making a response can be fatal.

It delivers one less certainty in a very uncertain world !