Three minutes, a football and a biscuit. These are all a president of the United States needs to start nuclear war. During a 1974 meeting with lawmakers, President Richard M. Nixon reportedly stated: “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.” He was correct. And since then, despite the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, little has changed.
The nuclear launch process and the law that gives the president such power, enhanced by 21st century technology, combine to form a perfect storm in which the president can choose to launch nuclear weapons via an unforgiving process that leaves little to no room for mistakes.