nuke

Trump would probably flunk the military’s nuke test

Nuclear weapons, Trump Leave a comment

Anyone in the U.S. military with any connection to nuclear weapons is required to pass the Personnel Reliability Program. Donald Trump would most likely flunk it.

In his recent New Yorker article, “How Trump Could Get Fired,” Evan Osnos notes that,

..If Trump were an officer in the Air Force, with any connection to nuclear weapons, he would need to pass the Personnel Reliability Program [PRP], which includes thirty-seven questions about financial history, emotional volatility, and physical health.

The US Department of Defense  established the PRP specificially for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. According to DOD:

[The PRP is a] security, medical and psychological evaluation program designed to permit only the most trustworthy individuals to have access to nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and biological weapons.

…Only those personnel who have demonstrated the highest degree of individual reliability for allegiance, trustworthiness, conduct, behavior, and responsibility shall be allowed to perform duties associated with nuclear weapons, and they shall be continuously evaluated for adherence to PRP standards.

The PRP evaluates many aspects of the individual’s work life and home life. Any disruption of these, or severe deviation from an established norm would be cause to deny access. The denial might be temporary or permanent.

PRP has many requirements for clearance. Here are the ones that would probably make Trump questionable:

-Have a medical evaluation. [Trump has refused to release a full medical history, except for the bizarre letter from his personal physician, written while a Trump minder watched and a limousine waited to pick it up.]
-Have a personnel file review, taking into account official records and information locally available on the behavior, conduct and reliability of the individual. Financial stability is among the criteria. [Trump has refused to release his tax returns, so we have no idea to whom he owes money. We do know that he has four bankruptcies on his record, though. And do I need to enumerate the vast trove of bad behaviors, outrageous statements and outright lies that would be “locally available” for such an evaluation?]

 –Be dependable and mentally alert. [Res ipse dixit.]

-Be flexible in adjusting to changes in the working environment, including ability to
work in adverse or emergency situations.
-Have good social adjustment, emotional stability, personal integrity, sound judgment,
and allegiance to the United States.

For his article, Osnos interviewed Bruce Blair, a research scholar at the Program on Science and Global Security, at Princeton:

[Blair] told me that if Trump were an officer in the Air Force, with any connection to nuclear weapons, he would need to pass the Personnel Reliability Program, which includes thirty-seven questions about financial history, emotional volatility, and physical health. (Question No. 28: Do you often lose your temper?)

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Trump would never pass muster,” Blair, who was a ballistic-missile launch-control officer in the Army, told me. “Any of us that had our hands anywhere near nuclear weapons had to pass the system. If you were having any arguments, or were in financial trouble, that was a problem. For all we know, Trump is on the brink of that.

But here’s the kicker:  The President is exempt from the PRP. He has already threatened North Korea, and he has the ultimate deciding vote on when to launch. Be afraid.