Introduction
Presidential sovereignty over nuclear weapons began with the Manhattan project in 1942 and
continues through to the current debate on nuclear modernization today. For this paper,
sovereignty is defined as the exclusive control and decision-making authority regarding the
strategy, placement, and use (particularly first-use) or non-use of the weapons themselves. The
purpose of this paper is to demonstrate this insight in such a way as to add complexity to the
question of sovereign control in general and to demonstrate how this question is often obfuscated
by the contemporary bickering over war powers in the context of September 11
th
, 2001. The true
measure of Presidential sovereignty is not just the literal control over nuclear weapons, and thus
the fate of the world, but the ability implied in this control to decide which situations are
appropriately dire such that the President’s authority exceeds the constitutional power to declare
War ordinarily granted to the Congress. This exception to the otherwise normal constitutional
order is an extreme case, but cannot be disaggregated from the deference to Presidential power in
foreign affairs generally.
The material context of this power—centralization of nuclear command via technological
innovations such as computers and telephony networks, transcontinental deliver vehicles—
altered the timeframe for decision-making and decision execution such that war could begin and
end in the time it takes to make dinner (even delivery). The brute facts of capability are lost in
the debates regarding constitutional authority. As Political Scientist Richard Neustadt said in
1963 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “When it comes to actions risking war,
technology has modified the Constitution.”
Following this sentiment the ethos of the Cold War
was laid out in NSC-68. NSC-68 made clear that the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Western
Europe necessitated a President unfettered by review and capable, even if not explicitly
authorized, of initiating war in the form of a nuclear first strike. However, this was not merely
1
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Imperial President, Boston: Mariner Books, 2004, p. 166.
2
Convention