Trump’s threats to ‘kill a civilisation’ were unhinged. That’s exactly how a nuclear option works

April 9, 2026 — 11:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Save this article for later

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.

If US President Donald Trump decided to launch a nuclear strike, he could do so at any time. He would summon a military aide who carries a leather-bound aluminium briefcase and is always near him, even when he travels. Inside the briefcase, which weighs about 20 kilograms, is a secure satellite phone and laminated sheets with dozens of nuclear war plans, targeting options and nuclear strike packages.

Everything about the briefcase is deliberately low-tech, to minimise technical difficulties. Trump would take out a sealed plastic card about the size of a thickened credit card, known as the “biscuit”. This is an authenticator, which he carries on his person. It contains alphanumeric authentication codes that will verify his identity.

The aide opens the briefcase, also called the “nuclear football”, and connects the president directly to the duty officer at the National Military Command Centre, a hardened bunker located underneath the Pentagon. The president authenticates himself to the duty officer using an alphanumeric code on the “biscuit”. He would then order one or more of the many nuclear strike packages available to him. The duty officer checks that the president did in fact respond with the correct alphanumeric code, and that the strike package is valid.

If so, the order is authentic, and the duty officer is required to transmit that lawful order from the commander-in-chief of the United States directly to the strategic bomber force or a land-based nuclear missile crew or the commander of a submarine armed with ballistic missiles.

The system has its origins in the Cold War. It enables the president to act quickly and unilaterally. The president and vice president receive a briefing about nuclear procedures from the US military prior to taking the oath of office. The vice-president has an identical biscuit if the president is assassinated or otherwise incapacitated.

Have Trump’s outlandish threats proved successful? We’ll find out in two weeks, or tomorrow

Trump’s threat on Wednesday that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” unless Iran capitulated was met with outrage at home and abroad. More than 70 Democratic Party members of congress said that Trump’s cabinet should invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and declare him unfit to serve, that Congress should impeach and convict him, or both.

Many of Trump’s long-time conservative backers, including media figures Alex Jones, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson even called for the president to be removed. Pope Leo XIV said the threat was “truly unacceptable” and the Secretary-General of the United Nations (remember him?) mused on social media that no military objective could justify wholesale destruction.

The US Vice-President, JD Vance, warned that US forces had tools they “so far haven’t decided to use,” resulting in a White House denial that it planned to use nuclear weapons.

What many people don’t realise is that Trump’s doomsday language isn’t outside the boundaries of US nuclear doctrine. Appearing a little out of control has long been part of US strategic thinking when it comes to nuclear weapons.

In 1995, the United States Strategic Command produced an important internal planning document known as Essentials of post-Cold War Deterrence. It argued that it would be better for nuclear deterrence if US leaders did not: “portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed. The fact that some elements may appear to be potentially out of control can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary’s decision makers. This essential sense of fear is the working force of deterrence. That the US may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries.”

The Trump administration is a kleptocracy. That alone offers hope for an end to the Iran war

Clinton FernandesAcademic and former intelligence officer

Academic and former intelligence officer

As such, Trump is not radically different to previous US presidents.

Last year, a group of US Democratic politicians released a video calling on US military and intelligence personnel to refuse illegal orders. However, an order from a US president – any US president – to launch a nuclear strike against another country would not be illegal. Presidents are under no legal obligation to consult with White House advisers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defence secretary, or anyone else. Even the vice-president is not in the nuclear launch chain of command. Anyone who tried to revoke a presidential order, or refused to obey it, would risk prosecution for mutiny. All the pre-planned nuclear target packages have already been vetted by United States government lawyers for legality – more correctly, for conformity with US domestic law.

If Trump wanted to launch a nuclear weapon, he could. Trump’s language is striking but his most noticeable difference is that he makes explicit that which was always implied, removing the moral scaffolding that some troops need to be able to follow certain orders.

Professor Clinton Fernandes is in the Future Operations Research Group at UNSW. His latest book is Turbulence: Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

© Brisbane Times