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If a nation were to launch an intercontinental ballistic
missile attack against the United States,
the president would have about 15 minutes to decide
whether to order a nuclear counterstrike.

If a nation were to
launch an intercontinental
ballistic missile attack
against the United States,
the president would
have about 15 minutes
to decide whether to order
a nuclear counterstrike.

And it is entirely the president’s decision.

And it is entirely
the president’s decision.

Should any one person have that much power?

Should any one person have
that much power?

By W.J. Hennigan
Photographs by An-My Lê

Mr. Hennigan writes about national security for Opinion. An-My Lê is a professor of photography at Bard College.

Forty-five feet underground in a command center near Omaha, there’s an encrypted communications line that goes directly to the American president. To get to it, you need to pass through a guarded turnstile, two reinforced steel doors and a twisting hallway that leads to an ultra-secure room called The Battle Deck. It’s here, below the headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, where military personnel stand by 24 hours a day awaiting a call the world hopes will never come: a direct order from their commander in chief — the president — to launch a nuclear attack.

Stratcom is the military headquarters responsible for overseeing all U.S. nuclear forces around the world.

Buried below is a military command headquarters constructed in case of a missile attack amid a national emergency.

Inside this room, Stratcom’s commander, Gen. Anthony Cotton, and his team would speak directly to the president, informing him or her about the nuclear options during a continuing crisis.

The workstations in The Battle Deck are arranged stadium-style around 15 L.E.D. screens that glow with real-time information and maps. Hanging from the ceiling, a small digital display reads: Blue Impact Timer, Red Impact Timer and Safe Escape Timer, all set to 00:00:00. If a president were to order the launch of a nuclear weapon, the timers would start ticking, alerting everyone in the room to how long they have before American weapons hit the enemy, how long before the enemy’s weapons hit us and how long before the building and all the people in it are destroyed by the incoming nuclear-tipped missiles.

An adversary launches a volley of intercontinental ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. An adversary launches a volley of
intercontinental ballistic missiles tipped
with nuclear warheads.

U.S. early-warning satellites first detect the
missiles’ heat signature. U.S. early-warning satellites first detect
the missiles’ heat signature.

Then U.S. radars detect the missiles in flight.

The North American Aerospace Defense
Command, or NORAD, analyzes the information
to determine whether the attack is real. The North American Aerospace
Defense Command, or NORAD, analyzes
the information to determine whether
the attack is real.

A rapid assessment takes about two minutes.

In the United States, it’s up to one person to decide whether the world becomes engulfed in nuclear war. Only the president has the authority to launch any of the roughly 3,700 nuclear weapons in the American stockpile, an arsenal capable of destroying all human life many times over. And that authority is absolute: No other person in the U.S. government serves as a check or balance once he or she decides to go nuclear. There is no requirement to consult Congress, to run the idea by the defense secretary or to ask the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for his or her opinion.

That means the American president is charged with the physical safety not only of some 334 million Americans but also of millions of people in other countries who, out of necessity, must rely upon his or her prudence and steady nerves to make a decision that could alter the course of human history.

Of course, it is American voters alone who........

© The New York Times