"A House of Dynamite": Donald Trump and Nuclear War
Still image from the 2025 film “A House of Dynamite,” depicting a military command center during a simulated nuclear crisis. From NPR.
By Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971)
Emeritus Professor of International Law
Purdue University
lberes@purdue.edu
Origins of a Unique Threat
The new 2025 film, “A House of Dynamite,” concerns a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack on the United States. Though many will regard that scenario as far-fetched or contrived, there is no scientific way to determine its actual probability. In logic and mathematics, probabilities are based on the determinable frequency of pertinent past events.
These events do not include a nuclear war.
There is more. From the film’s opening, all designated strategic commands in the United States are unable to identify the source of the ex nihilo attack and to learn if it was launched by intent, miscalculation or technical accident. Significantly, by any real-world standard of scrutiny, this movie-suggested inability is credible and plausible.
The film’s main message is unambiguous: Americans and others are already at risk of nuclear attack. While not calculable in scientific terms, there is at least one worrisome narrative that “A House of Dynamite” seemingly excludes: Unidentifiable nuclear aggression (i.e., the “anonymous attacker scenario”[1]) could arrive in response to actions originating from the “inside” as well as from countries operating “outside.” This means that the true cause of a nuclear attack against the United States could at some point be the American president. Inter alia, this underlying cause could be presidential miscalculation (especially in extremis, during an ongoing crisis); psychological breakdown; cognitive dissemblance (transient dementia); or outright irrationality.
In recent years, the notion that the American commander-in-chief is effectively able to launch US nuclear weapons on his own authority has been widely accepted and more-or-less grudgingly acknowledged. Though unconstitutional, broad presidential authority to release nuclear weapons against a presumed adversary has often been taken as “realistic.” Today, however, because credible US nuclear deterrence lies less persuasively in “hair trigger” nuclear readiness than was the case during the Cold War, allowing an American head-of-state unprecedented military powers is unnecessary. To be more precise, if this gratuitous enlargement of presidential military authority remains in force, an unsuitable triumvirate consisting of Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller could have the final say on national or planetary survival.[2]
Credo quia absurdum, said the ancient Roman philosopher Tertullian: “I believe because it is absurd.”
When Donald J. Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, prospects for nuclear war increased correspondingly. Since that return, Mr. Trump has announced plans to resume nuclear weapons testing and enlarge America’s nuclear deterrent force. Regarding his self-admired plan for peace in Ukraine, this proposal turned out to be abjectly lawless surrender of the victim state to Nuremberg-category crimes[3] (crimes of war; crimes against peace; crimes against humanity). Under authoritative international law, no US president or any other head of state has the right to favor an aggressor state over a victim state.
Nothing is more urgent for planet Earth than nuclear war avoidance. Immediately, it is the responsibility of capable scholars and strategists engaged in supporting this goal to raise appropriate questions. Here is what they should now inquire:
What relevant foreign policy interactions or synergies could plausibly arise under President Trump?
How might these interactions involve US foreign relations, international law and national survival?
Looking ahead, one always-underlying danger will be an unqualified American president who values personal advantage over national security.[4] At some point, such a perilous hierarchy of preferences could be rendered existential by (1) a nuclear crisis contrived by Mr. Trump; or (2) a “naturally occurring” nuclear crisis mismanaged by the president. In a once-unimaginable narrative, a dissembling American president could even side actively with the Russian dictator-aggressor against the NATO-supported Ukrainian victim.
Credo quia absurdum: “I believe because it is absurd.”
There will be background issues to consider. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and United States embraced certain asymmetrical nuclear doctrines. For Moscow, the critical escalatory threshold was not one distinguishing conventional weapons from nuclear weapons, but instead one separating tactical nuclear weapons from strategic nuclear weapons. For Washington, on the other hand, the relevant firebreak was the one separating conventional from nuclear weapons. More precisely, from the standpoint of Washington, any crossing of the nuclear threshold by Moscow represents the beginnings of a no-holds-barred or unmanageable nuclear conflict.
Today, with the growing prospect of Russia facing off against NATO rather than the United States, neither side could have any verifiable sense of acceptable firebreaks, and resultant ambiguities could quickly undermine “ordinary” foundations of nuclear deterrence.
On its face, these military matters are unprecedented (sui generis). With Donald Trump at the helm, the United States now faces multiple nuclear threats in variously bewildering iterations. In response, America’s law-based concerns should focus on Russia-Ukraine relations and on North Korea, India, Pakistan and China.
And there is the Middle East. Though set back tangibly by Israeli and US attacks in June 2025, Iran still poses a potentially nuclear hazard to Israel. Among other things, Tehran could sometime prod an Israeli escalation to limited nuclear strikes.[5] Linguistically, such a scenario would signify an “asymmetrical nuclear war,” and could involve the United States in manifestly unpredictable ways.
Sorely troubling and deeply ironic is that Trump policies to strengthen Sunni Arab states as a “countervailing power” to Shiite Iran could backfire. To wit, as President Trump’s announced sale of American F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia could heighten the prospects for wider regional wars, it could simultaneously enlarge certain residual risks of a nuclear conflict. In this connection, a genuinely prudent American president should bear in mind that these are “uncharted waters.” Hic sunt dracones, noted the medieval maps, “Here be dragons.”
First and foremost, these are all intellectual problems and ought to be approached accordingly. To proceed, a first "order of business" should be to determine an expected adversary's ordering of preferences. By definition, only those adversaries who would value national survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences would be acting rationally. It will be vitally important for any US president to understand in advance of any specific crisis where each potential enemy stands on the question of decisional rationality.
Variations of Rationality
It will get very complicated.[6] There will be significant nuances. For senior scholars and policy-makers, subsidiary questions will need to be considered. What will be the operational meanings of relevant terminologies and vocabularies?
In the formal study of international relations, international law and military strategy, decisional irrationality is never the same as madness. Still, residual warnings about madness could warrant serious US policy consideration. Both "ordinary" irrationality and full-scale madness could exert more-or-less comparable effects on an examined country's national security decision-making processes.
But how should these effects be predicted and deciphered?
At some point, for the United States, understanding and anticipating such effects could approach existential importance. In such high-urgency considerations, words would matter ipso facto. In normal strategic parlance, we ought to recall, "irrationality" identifies a decisional foundation wherein national self-preservation is not summa, i.e., where it is not the highest or ultimate preference.
A prospectively irrational decision-maker in Moscow, Pyongyang or elsewhere need not be determinably "mad" in order to become a troubling issue for US policy analysis. Such an adversary would need "only" to be more concerned about certain discernible preferences or values than about self-preservation. One example would be preferences that are expressed for outcomes other than national survival. Normally, any such revealed preferences would be unexpected and counter-intuitive, but still not be unprecedented or inconceivable. And identifying the specific criteria or correlates of such survival imperatives could prove irremediably subjective or simply incalculable. What happens then?
Whether an examined American adversary were deemed irrational or "mad," US military planners would have to input a generally similar decisional calculus. A credible analytic premise could be that the particular adversary "in play" might not be deterred from launching a military attack by Trump threats of retaliatory destruction even where such threats would be believable. Any such failure of US military deterrence could include both conventional and nuclear retaliatory threats, and/or concern Trump threats of “pretended irrationality.” During his first presidential campaign in 2016, candidate Trump mused openly about using exactly such deceptions.
There is more. In fashioning America's nuclear strategy vis-à-vis nuclear and not-yet-nuclear adversaries,[7] US military planners should include a mechanism to determine whether the designated adversary will more likely be rational or irrational. Operationally, this would mean ascertaining whether the identifiable foe will value its collective survival (whether as sovereign state or organized terror group) more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences. Prima facie, this early judgment would need to be based on defensibly sound analytic methods.
In principle, at least, such judgments ought never to be affected in any way by what analysts might “want to believe."[8] Any failure to recognize and understand this very basic precept of logic and scientific method would represent a lethal retreat from Reason.[9] In matters of nuclear war avoidance, no such retreat could ever be purposeful or defensible.
A corollary US obligation, depending in large part on prior judgments of enemy rationality, would expect strategic planners to assess whether a properly nuanced posture of "pretended irrationality" could enhance America's nuclear deterrence posture. On multiple occasions, it should be recalled here, Donald Trump has continued to praise the underlying premises of such an untested strategic posture. Is this presidential praise intellectually warranted and/or justified? To what extent could it quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
The bewildering answer? “It depends.” US enemies include both state and sub-state foes, whether considered singly or in assorted forms of collaboration. Additionally, such forms could be "hybridized" in different ways between state and sub-state adversaries.[10] In dealing with Washington, each recognizable class of enemies could sometime choose to feign irrationality.
Is the current American president prepared to understand all this? “It depends.” Pretended irrationality could represent a rational tactic for Donald Trump to "get a jump" on a designated adversary during any expected or ongoing competition for "escalation dominance."[11] Still, any such calculated pretense could fail calamitously. It follows, whatever the crisis particulars, that cautionary US strategic behavior based on serious conceptual thinking should be the presidential "order of the day."[12]
There is something else. Reciprocally, on occasion, designated American enemies could "decide," consciously or unwittingly, to actually be irrational.[13] In such circumstances, it would become incumbent on American strategic planners to capably assess which basic form of irrationality - pretended or authentic - is in evidence. These planners would then need to respond with a dialectically orchestrated and optimally counterpoised set of possible reactions. In intellectual terms, this need would present an uncommonly "tall order."
For strategic thinkers, the term "dialectically" (drawn originally from ancient Greek thought, principally Plato's dialogues) should be used with precisely assigned meanings. This is meant to signify a continuous or ongoing question-and-answer format of strategic reasoning. Also well-known is the special role of dialectic in legal reasoning. US President Trump’s decision to effectively stand by the Russian aggressor against the Ukrainian victim represents an unpardonable violation of international law.[14]
By definition, any instance of enemy irrationality would value certain specific preferences (e.g., presumed religious obligations or personal and/or regime safety) more highly than collective survival. For America, the grievously threatening prospect of facing an irrational nuclear adversary is prospectively most worrisome with regard to North Korea and potentially Iran.[15] Apropos of all such more-or-less credible apprehensions, it is unlikely they could ever be reduced by means of formal treaties or other law-based agreements.[16] They could never be reduced by Trump-inspired strategic thinking.
International Law, Nuclear Crisis-Management and “Chaos”
It's an old story. It will be worth remembering seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes' classic warning in Leviathan: "Covenants, without the sword, are but words...."[17] And if this traditional problem of global anarchy were not daunting enough for Trump-era American strategists, it is further complicated by the prospect of incremental transformations into “chaos.”
Chaos is not the same as anarchy. Chaos is "more than" anarchy. We have all lived with anarchy or absence of a central government authority in world law since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, but we have yet to descend into any worldwide chaos.
We are concerned here with linkages between the current Trump presidency and an international nuclear crisis. How should the United States proceed to strategize and bargain in such unique circumstances, ones that include a more expressly belligerent Russian nuclear doctrine and growing European insecurity regarding Trump’s reliability as a key ally. At some point, ex hypothesi, the best security option could appear to be some sort of preemption, but certainly not against Russia. This could signify a defensive non-nuclear first-strike against situationally appropriate North Korean or Iranian hard targets. There are no circumstances in which an American preemption against Russian nuclear targets (ordnance and/or command/control centers) could ever be rational unless a Russian nuclear first strike was determinedly imminent or ascertainably underway.
It is already much too late for launching an operationally cost-effective preemption against North Korea. Even if such a defensive strike could be defended in law as "anticipatory self-defense," any such action would come at a too-substantial human cost. At the same time, seeking North Korea denuclearization by normal diplomatic means would prove futile under all conceivable circumstances.
In regard to any current and potentially protracted US-Iran enmity, the American side should consider how its nuclear weapons could be leveraged gainfully against that adversary in any future war scenario. A rational answer here could never include the operational use of such weapons. The only pertinent questions for US planners, therefore, should concern the calculable extent to which an asymmetrical US threat of nuclear escalation (i.e., a threat when Iran was still determinably pre-nuclear) could sometime be made sufficiently credible.
By applying all available standards of ordinary reason and logic (there are, after all, no historical points of reference in such unprecedented situations), Washington could most suitably determine that nuclear threats against Iran would serve American security interests only when Iranian military capacities (though non-nuclear) were still overwhelming. Any such daunting scenario, though difficult to imagine, might nonetheless be conceivable. This "strategic dialectic" would hold most convincingly if Tehran were willing to escalate (1) to massive direct conventional attacks upon American territories or populations; and/or (2) to significant use of biological warfare capabilities.
All this should now imply a primary obligation for the United States (3) to focus continuously on incremental enhancements to its implicit nuclear deterrence posture; and (4) to develop a wide and nuanced range of nuclear retaliatory options. The specific rationale of (4) (above), is the counter-intuitive understanding that credibility of nuclear threats could at some point vary inversely with perceived levels of destructiveness. In certain tangible circumstances, this means that successful nuclear deterrence of Iran could depend on nuclear weapons deemed aptly low-yield or short-range.
There is more. Irony can never diminish truth value or legal meaning. Sometimes, in fashioning a national nuclear deterrence posture, counter-intuitive strategic insight is correctly "on the mark" and therefore indispensable. This is likely one of these analytically and jurisprudentially "multi-layered" times.
Nuclear War as Terminal Disease
During a nuclear crisis, whatever its origins, Washington should continuously bear in mind that any US nuclear posture needs to remain focused on prevention, not punishment. In any and all identifiable circumstances, using a portion of its available nuclear forces for vengeance rather than deterrence would miss the point; that is, to fully-optimize US national security, irrespective of any contrary domestic political pressures. Any American nuclear weapons use that was based on narrowly corrosive notions of revenge, even if only as a residual or default option, would be irrational. It would also be illegal under authoritative international law.
These are complex intellectual and legal issues, not simply political ones. America's many-sided nuclear deterrent must be backed up by recognizably robust systems of active defense (BMD), especially if there should ever arise any determinable reasons to fear an irrational nuclear adversary. Although it is already well-known that no system of active defense could be "leak-proof" (the implicit presumptions of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome”), there is good reason to suppose that certain BMD deployments could help safeguard both US civilian populations (soft targets) and American nuclear retaliatory forces (hard targets). This means that technologically advanced anti-missile systems should remain indefinitely as a continuously modernizing component of this country's nuclear deterrence posture. Among other elements of permissible self-defense, this suggests steadily-expanding US emphasis on laser-based weapon systems.
While it may at first sound obvious, it should still be borne in mind that in the complicated nuclear age, seemingly defensive strategies could be viewed by warily uneasy adversaries as offensive. This is because the secure foundation of any system of nuclear deterrence should always be some reasonable form of mutual vulnerability. "Everything is very simple in war" (remember Clausewitz’ On War), "but the simplest thing is still difficult."
Ultimately, to progress in its most vital national security obligations, American military planners should more expressly identify the prioritized goals of this country's nuclear deterrence posture. Before any rational adversary could be suitably deterred by any American nuclear deterrent, that enemy would first need to believe that Washington had capably maintained the capacity to launch appropriate nuclear reprisals for calibrated forms of aggression (nuclear and biological/non-nuclear), and the will to undertake such consequential firings. About the first belief criterion, it would almost certainly lie beyond any juristic standards of "reasonable doubt."
The second expectation, however, could prove more problematic and more-or-less "fatally" undermine US nuclear deterrence. In assorted ways that are not yet clearly understood, necessary national will could sometime be impacted by pandemic-related or pandemic-created factors. Significantly, there will assuredly be future disease pandemics, and these could harbor certain hard-to-foresee interactions or synergies between US policy decisions and the decisions of particular American adversaries.
In those matters involving an expectedly irrational nuclear enemy,[18] successful US nuclear deterrence would need to be based on credible threats to enemy values other than national survival. Here, the prospect of enemy irrationality could be related to pandemic factors. In extreme cases, disease could also play a determinative role in producing an enemy's decisional irrationality.
America will also need to demonstrate the continuous invulnerability of its essential nuclear retaliatory forces to enemy first-strike aggressions. It will remain in America's long-term survival interests to emphasize variegated submarine-basing nuclear options.[19] Otherwise, as is plainly reasonable, America's land-based strategic nuclear forces could present to a strongly-determined existential enemy (e.g., North Korea) as "too-vulnerable."
For the moment, this is not a palpably serious concern, though Washington will still want to stay focused on any further planned deployments of submarines by its Israeli ally. The general point of this secondary focus would be to strengthen Israeli nuclear deterrence, which - in one way or another - would be to the overall strategic benefit of the United States.[20] Looking ahead to “biological variables,” Israel's nuclear deterrence could be affected by future pandemics, including some with still-indecipherable consequences for the United States.
Enhanced Nuclear Deterrence
More and more, America will have to rely on a broadly multi-faceted doctrine of nuclear deterrence. In turn, like its already-nuclear Israeli ally,[21] specific elements of this "simple but difficult" doctrine could sometime need to be rendered less "ambiguous." This complex and finely nuanced modification will require an even more determined focus on prospectively rational and irrational enemies, including both national and sub-national foes.
To deal most successfully with presumptively irrational or non-rational enemies, the United States will need a continuously-updating strategic "playbook." Again, it could become necessary for Washington to consider, at least on occasion, policies of feigned irrationality. In such analytically-challenging cases, it would be important for the American president not (1) to react to provocations in an ad hoc or "seat-of-the-pants" fashion, but (2) to derive specific policy reactions from a pre-fashioned and fully-comprehensive strategic nuclear doctrine. Without such a thoughtful doctrine as guide, “pretended irrationality” could become a double-edged sword, bringing more rather than fewer security harms to the United States.
There is one more critical observation. It is improbable, but not inconceivable, that certain of America's principal enemies would be neither rational nor irrational, but “mad.” While irrational decision-makers could already pose special problems for US nuclear deterrence - because these decision-makers would not value collective survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences - they might still be rendered susceptible to alternate forms of deterrence.
Resembling rational decision-makers, they could still maintain a fixed, determinable and "transitive" hierarchy of preferences. This means, at least in principle, that "merely" irrational enemies could still sometimes be successfully deterred. Such an observation is well worth further analytic study, especially as US planners could need to confront potentially fearsome "simultaneities." On the other hand, mad or "crazy" adversaries would have no such calculable hierarchy of preferences and might not be subject to any strategy of American nuclear deterrence. Though it would likely be far worse for the United States to have to face a mad nuclear enemy than “just” an irrational one, Washington would have no foreseeable choice in the matter. This country will need to maintain, perhaps indefinitely, a "three track" system of nuclear deterrence and defense, one track for each of its still-identifiable adversaries that are presumptively (1) rational (2) irrational or (3) mad.
This will not be a task for a narrowly political or intellectually adverse US decision-maker. For the most unpredictable third track, special plans will be needed for undertaking potentially indispensable preemptions, and for overlapping efforts at missile defense. But there could be no assurances that any one "track" would present exclusively of the others. This means that American decision-makers could have to face deeply intersecting or interpenetrating tracks and that these simultaneities could sometime be synergistic.
There is one final point. Even if America's military planners could reasonably assume that enemy leaderships were fully rational, this would say nothing about the accuracy of information used by these foes. Always, it ought never to be forgotten, rationality refers only to the intention of maximizing designated preferences. It says nothing about whether the information used is verifiably correct.
During this Trump-inspired moment of US policy shift – a shift from Russia’s existential adversary to Russia’s de facto ally or surrogate - compensatory actions by NATO nuclear powers (especially France and UK) could trigger previously-unfathomable nuclear crises. Such once “absurd” scenarios should be sobering to America's task-centered national security planners. For these disciplined and still-capable officials, this is the moment to disavow any self-defiling inclinations to belligerent nationalism (“America First”) and courageously acknowledge that “everyone for himself” mantras could never prove gainful for the United States.
Additional Complexities: Facing Perils from Rational Adversaries
America is not made safer by having rational adversaries. Among other things, even rational enemy leaderships could commit serious errors in calculation that lead them toward nuclear confrontation or nuclear/biological war. There are also related command and control issues that could impel a perfectly rational adversary or combination of rational adversaries (both state and sub-state) to embark on risky nuclear behaviors. It follows that even the most reassuringly "optimistic" assessments of enemy decision-making could never preclude catastrophic outcomes.
For the United States, understanding that no scientifically-accurate judgments of probability can ever be made about unique events (by definition, any nuclear exchange would be a unique event), the key lesson for America's president should be decisional prudence and personal humility. Of special interest here should be the always-erroneous presumption that having greater nuclear military power than an adversary ensures future bargaining success. When Donald Trump announced during his first administration that he and Kim Jung Un both had a "nuclear button," but that his button was “bigger," the American president completely misunderstood the strategic advantages of such a presumed asymmetry.
There are explanatory particulars. The quantifiable amount of deliverable nuclear firepower required for deterrence is less than what would be required for "victory." This is a time for more nuanced and purposeful wisdom in US strategic planning, not for clichéd presidential thinking or endlessly rancorous fusillades of empty chatter.
For American decision-making in the unpracticed nuclear age, ancient tragedy warnings about excessive leadership pride are not only still relevant. They are more important and time-urgent than ever before. In mid-March 2025, Donald Trump said he was making plans to “reclaim the Panama Canal.” Though his visceral backers seemed unaware or unconcerned, no such plans could be defensible in law or strategy. To begin, these plans point to multiple violations of US treaty commitments, and treaties represent “the supreme law of the land” under Article VI (“the “Supremacy Clause”) of the US Constitution. Similar illegalities and strategic misunderstandings surround President Trump’s attacks on alleged drug-trafficking boats in several different seas, and his adrenalized warnings to Venezuela in November 2025.
Left unchecked in the Trump White House, hubris (excessive pride) could bring forth uncontrolled spasms of "retribution." Classical Greek tragedians were not yet called upon to reason about nuclear decision-making. None of this culminating foreign policy clarification is meant to build on America's reasonable fears or apprehensions, but rather to remind that competent national security planning should remain a complex struggle of "mind over mind."
A fundamentally intellectual struggle requires meticulous analytic preparations, not self-congratulatory "attitudes." For the United States, competent national security planning ought never to become just another superficially calculable contest of "mind over matter;" that is, a recorded comparison of weapons and presumed "order of battle." Unless this rudimentary point is more completely understood by senior US strategic policymakers, by the US Congress and by the president of the United States - and until these same policy-shapers can begin to see the wisdom of expanded global cooperation/human "oneness"- America could never render itself secure from nuclear war.
A US President Who Attends to Reasoning
Nuclear threats are “force multiplying” and pose a lethal hazard for the United States. To make this perilous simultaneity more manageable will require a president with suitably intellectual moorings and inclinations. Failing to meet this basic requirement could compel a once-promising nation to accept risks of explosive collapse. Recalling twentieth-century German philosopher Karl Jaspers, this failure would represent the triumph of murderous "magicians"in the United States. Ipso facto, it would be a catastrophic triumph.
When Donald J. Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the United States quickly found itself embroiled in a generalized crisis of decisional incoherence. Now, left to his own demonstrably anti-historical and anti-intellectual inclinations, US President Donald J. Trump could bring this increasingly unsteady nation to unprecedented periods of harm and lamentation. The specific urgency of such danger would depend on the extent to which Karl Jaspers’ “masses” would once again align themselves with a rambling and uncomprehending political “magician.” Currently, this urgency is most apparent in Trump’s de facto support for Russian aggression against Ukraine. Though still discussed sotto voce, in whispers, a sitting US president could function as a Russian asset.
An antecedent question now arises: Why do Americans remain subject to such unhidden presidential deception? The US electorate lives on the porous boundaries of what is needed for human understanding and planetary survival. French thinkers of the eighteenth-century Age of Reason wrote of a siecle des lumieres, a “century of light,” but today’s Trump-era politics are continuously befouled by conspicuous celebrations of anti-reason. In these United States, let us finally be candid, any elevated “life of the mind” has already become a vanishing text.
What should be concluded? Above all, the American nation is being undermined by the rancorous and purposeless agitations of a whim-driven president. If left in their dissembling condition, these “internal” agitations will interact in variously unknown and unknowable ways with still-impending international crises. From such a Trump-enhanced “house of dynamite,” there would be neither escape nor sanctuary.
[1] This scenario was discussed in some early books on nuclear strategy and nuclear war, including this writer’s (Louis René Beres) Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (The University of Chicago Press, 1980).
[2] See by this writer, Professor Louis René Beres, at The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (August 2016): https://thebulletin.org/2016/08/what-if-you-dont-trust-the-judgment-of-the-president-whose-finger-is-over-the-nuclear-button/
[3] See PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW RECOGNIZED IN THE CHARTER AND JUDGMENT OF THE NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL. Report of the International Law Commission, 2nd session, 1950, U.N. G.A.O.R. 5th session, Supp. No. 12, A/1316, p. 11
[4] Recall here the speech of Creon, King of Thebes, in Sophocles' Antigone: "I hold despicable, and always have, anyone who puts his own popularity before his country."
[5] See by this writer, Louis René Beres, at BESA (Israel): https://besacenter.org/limited-nuclear-war-and-israels-national-strategy/
[6] Recall Carl von Clausewitz (On War): “Everything is very simple in war, but even the simplest thing is still difficult.”
[7] For a timely analysis of deterring not-yet-nuclear adversaries in the case of Israel, see article co-authored by Professor Louis René Beres and (former Israeli Ambassador) Zalman Shoval at the Modern War Institute, West Point (Pentagon): https://mwi.usma.edu/creating-seamless-strategic-deterrent-israel-case-study/
[8] Recall here the classic statement of Julius Caesar: "Men as a rule believe what they want to believe." See: Caesar's Gallic War, Book III, Chapter 18.
[9] See, on these enduring issues, Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952).
[10] This "hybrid" concept could also be applied to various pertinent ad hoc bilateral state collaborations against US strategic interests. For example, during June 2019, Russia and China collaborated to block an American initiative aimed at halting fuel deliveries to North Korea. The US-led cap on North Korea's fuel imports had been intended to sanction any continuing North Korean nuclearization. Prima facie, this narrowly visceral plan was futile.
[11] On "escalation dominance," see article by Professor Louis René Beres at The War Room, US Army War College, Pentagon: https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/nuclear-decision-making-and-nuclear-war-an-urgent-american-problem/
[12]The seventeenth-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal remarks prophetically in Pensées: "All our dignity consists in thought...It is upon this that we must depend...Let us labor then to think well: this is the foundation of morality." Similar reasoning characterizes the writings of Baruch Spinoza, Pascal's 17th-century contemporary. In Book II of his Ethics Spinoza considers the human mind, or the intellectual attributes, and - drawing further upon René Descartes - strives to define an essential theory of learning and knowledge.
[13] Sigmund Freud sought to "excavate" deeper meanings concerning irrational human behavior. He was a modern-day philosophe, a proud child of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, one who discovered profound analytic and therapeutic advantages in exploring arcane literary paths to psychological knowledge. Freud maintained an extensive personal collection of antiquities which suggested certain penetrating psychological insights to him. Some of his pertinent collection was placed directly on his work desk; reportedly, he would often touch and turn the artifacts while deeply engaged in variously challenging thoughts.
[14] This decision concerns the crime of genocide as well as the crime of aggression. Neither international law nor US law specifically advises particular penalties or sanctions for states that choose not to prevent or punish genocide committed by others. Nonetheless, all states, most notably "major powers" belonging to the UN Security Council, are bound, inter alia, by the peremptory obligation (defined at Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties) known as pacta sunt servanda, to act in continuous "good faith." In turn, this pacta sunt servanda obligation is derived from an even more basic norm of world law. Commonly known as "mutual assistance," this civilizing norm was most famously identified within the classical interstices of international jurisprudence, most notably by the eighteenth-century legal scholar, Emmerich de Vattel in The Law of Nations (1758) and by William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765).
[15] See, also by this author, Louis René Beres, at Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School): https://harvardnsj.org/2013/10/lessons-for-israel-from-ancient-chinese-military-thought-facing-iranian-nuclearization-with-sun-tzu/
[16] See, for example, by this author, at Yale: Louis René Beres, https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/nuclear-treaty-abrogation-imperils-global-security
[17] Regarding "covenants," US decision-makers should nonetheless be continually attentive to relevant considerations of international law as well as strategy. More particularly, under authoritative law, states must judge every use of force twice: once with regard to the underlying right to wage war (jus ad bellum) and once with regard to the means used in conducting an actual war (jus in bello). Following the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 and the United Nations Charter (1945), there remains no defensible legal right to waging an aggressive war. However, the long-standing customary right of post-attack self-defense does remain codified at Article 51 of the UN Charter. Similarly, subject to conformance, inter alia, with jus in bello criteria, certain instances of humanitarian intervention and collective security operations may also be consistent with jus ad bellum standards. The law of war, the rules of jus in bello, comprise: (1) laws on weapons; (2) laws on warfare; and (3) humanitarian rules. Codified primarily at The Hague and Geneva Conventions, these rules attempt to bring discrimination, proportionality and military necessity into all belligerent calculations.
[18] See, on deterring a prospectively irrational nuclear Iran, Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, "Could Israel Safely deter a Nuclear Iran? The Atlantic, August 2012; and Professor Louis René Beres and General John T. Chain, "Israel; and Iran at the Eleventh Hour," Oxford University Press (OUP Blog), February 23, 2012. Though dealing with Israeli rather than American nuclear deterrence, these articles authoritatively clarify the common conceptual elements. General Chain was Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Strategic Air Command (CINCSAC).
[19] On the Israeli sea-basing issue, see Louis René Beres and Admiral Leon "Bud" Edney, "Israel's Nuclear Strategy: A Larger Role for Submarine-Basing," The Jerusalem Post, August 17, 2014; and Professor Louis René Beres and Admiral Leon "Bud" Edney, "A Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent for Israel," Washington Times, September 5, 2014. Admiral Edney was NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (SACLANT).
[20] See, in this connection, by Professor Louis René Beres, with a postscript by General (USA/ret.) Barry R. McCaffrey, Israel's Nuclear Strategy and America's National Security; https://sectech.tau.ac.il/sites/sectech.tau.ac.il/files/PalmBeachBook.pdf
[21] See, by this author (who was Chair of Project Daniel for Israeli PM Ariel Sharon): http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH-NATIV/03-ISSUE/daniel-3.htm See also: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israel-nuclear-ambiguity/ and https://www.idc.ac.il/he/research/ips/Documents/2013/%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%AA/LouisReneBeres.pdf
Louis René Beres received his Ph.D. at Princeton in 1971, and is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue University. Born in Zurich at the end of World War II, he is the author of twelve major books dealing with terrorism, nuclear strategy and jurisprudence. His popular articles have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Jerusalem Post and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Dr. Louis René Beres was an early recipient of the Bulletin's Rabinowitch Prize.