Annie Jacobsen: observation

Transcript context

…What are the different ways it could start? Literally, who presses a button and what does it take to press a button? The way it starts is in space, meaning the US Defense Department has a early warning system, and the system in space is called SBIRS. It’s a constellation of satellites that is keeping an eye on all of America’s enemies so that the moment an ICBM launches, the satellite in space… And I’m talking about 1/10 of the way to the moon, that’s how powerful these satellites are in geo-sync. They see the hot rocket exhaust on the ICBM in a fraction of a second after it launches, a fraction of a second. And so, there begins this horrifying policy called Launch on Warning, right? And that’s the US counterattack. Meaning the reason that the United States is so ferociously watching for a nuclear launch somewhere around the globe is so that the nuclear command and control system in the US can move into action to immediately make a counterstrike. Because we have that policy, Launch on Warning, which is exactly like it says. It means the United States will not wait to absorb a nuclear attack. It will launch nuclear weapons in response before the bomb actually hits. So the president, as part of the Launch on Warning policy, has six minutes… I guess can’t launch for six minutes, but at six minute mark from that first warning, the president can launch.…

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