Topic Explorer

The Topic Explorer uses the same search and topic filters for all of the different resources on this site. It is meant to allow easy cross-examination of different issues.

Topics

1940s (29) 1950s (32) 1960s (43) 1970s (21) 1980s (17) 1990s (8) 2000s (5) 2010s (24) Bush, George W. (1) Carter, James (6) Chain of command (15) Civilian-military divide (22) Clinton, William J. (2) Congress (21) Congressional Research Service (4) Constitutionality (6) Custody (22) Cybersecurity (3) Directives (6) Doctrine (20) Early warning systems (17) Eisenhower, Dwight D. (20) Ford, Gerald R. (2) France (12) India (11) Israel (7) Johnson, Lyndon B. (11) Kennedy, John F. (24) Law of war (9) Missiles (6) NATO (21) News Media (18) Nixon, Richard M. (11) Non-Use (8) North Korea (10) Nuclear accidents (17) Nuclear football (17) Nuclear launch procedure (32) Nuclear safety (34) Nuclear war plans (31) Obama, Barack (8) Oral history (1) Overseas deployment (19) Pakistan (17) People's Republic of China (15) Permissive Action Links (23) Predelegation (17) Presidential nuclear control (57) RAND Corporation (4) Reagan, Ronald (8) Remedies (5) Russian Federation (16) South Africa (1) Soviet Union (23) Succession (3) Truman, Harry S. (21) Trump, Donald J. (18) Two-man rule (9) United Kingdom (19) United States of America (126) US Air Force (21) US Atomic Energy Commission (15) US Department of Defense (28) US Department of Energy (5) US Joint Chiefs of Staff (17) US National Security Council (7) US Secretary of Defense (11) US Strategic Air Command (15) US Strategic Command (15) World War II (8)

Primers

Presidential unilateral nuclear use authority under Truman: In the United States, the authority to use nuclear weapons is vested in the President of the United States.

Documents

Date ▼	Title	File
2017-11-14	Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Nuclear Weapons Authority	PDF
2017-11-14	Use of Nuclear Weapons Authority	PDF
1969-08	Presidential Succession and the Authority to Release Nuclear Weapons	PDF
1964-12-01	DDRS, Briefing to the Gilpatric Committee by William J. Howard	PDF
1946-08-01	US Atomic Energy Act of 1946	PDF

Bibliographies

Woolf, Amy F. and James D. Werner. The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Overview of Department of Energy Sites. CRS Report No. R45306. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2018. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R45306.pdf.

Woolf, Amy F. "Congress and US Nuclear Weapons: Review and Oversight of Policies and Programs." Nonproliferation Review 14, no. 3 (November 2007): 499-516,

Wellerstein, Alex and Avner Cohen. "If Trump wants to use nuclear weapons, whether it’s ‘legal’ won’t matter." Washington Post, November 22, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/22/if-trump-wants-to-use-nuclear-weapons-whether-its-legal-wont-matter/?utm_term=.b893af9d38d5.

Wellerstein, Alex. "No one can stop President Trump from using nuclear weapons. That's by design." Washington Post, December 1, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.05b5b6a7fe06.

Tamkin, Emily. "Lawmakers Introduce Bill Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons." Foreign Policy. January 24, 2017. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/24/senator-and-congressman-introduce-restricting-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons-act-trump/?utm_campaign=New+Campaign&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_term=%2AEditors+Picks.

Slocombe, Walter B. Democratic Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons. Policy Paper no. 12. Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), 2006. https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/pp12_democratic_civilian_control_nuclear_weapons.pdf.

Singh, Robert S. "The United States Congress and Nuclear War Powers: Explaining Legislative Nonfeasance." The Journal of Legislative Studies 24, no. 3 (2018): 298-314.

Mecklin, John. "Duke’s Peter Feaver on the president and US nuclear command and control." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. November 30, 2017. https://thebulletin.org/2017/11/dukes-peter-feaver-on-the-president-and-us-nuclear-command-and-control/.

Lanouette, William. "Civilian Control Of Nuclear Weapons." Arms Control Today 39, no. 4 (May 2009): 45-48. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_5/Lanouette.

Goldstein, Yonkel. "The Failure of Constitutional Controls over War Powers in the Nuclear Age: The Argument for a Constitutional Amendment." Stanford Law Review 40, no. 6 (July 1988): 1543-1592.

Eatinger, Robert. "Riddles of Armageddon: Legal Enigmas of a Nuke Launch Order." The Cipher Brief. January 23, 2018. https://www.thecipherbrief.com/riddles-armageddon-legal-enigmas-nuke-launch-order.

Demirjian, Karoun. "Trump’s nuclear authority divides senators alarmed by his ‘volatile’ behavior." Washington Post, November 14, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senators-deadlock-in-debate-over-whether-to-restrain-trumps-nuclear-launch-authority/2017/11/14/491a994a-c95b-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?utm_term=.5eecae311b16.

Curry, Dan. Always/Never: The Quest for Safety, Control & Survivability. Documentary. Sandia National Laboratories, 2010.

Born, Hans, Bates Gill, and Heiner Hänggi (eds). Governing the Bomb: Civilian Control and Democratic Accountability of Nuclear Weapons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Bader, Jeffrey and Jonathan D. Pollack. "Time to Restrict the President’s Power to Wage Nuclear War." New York Times. September 12, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/opinion/time-to-restrict-the-presidents-power-to-wage-nuclear-war.html.