And even they might require you to break some glass first. They are emergency shutoff switches, things that you need to push in a big hurry, without too much hassle. But they are usually used to stop activity, not start it. There are places in the world where big red buttons exist. Because you know that, sooner or later, a cat would set it off. Or, as I like to put it, you don’t want a nuclear weapon that can be set off by a cat. Nobody wants nuclear war to be that easy to start. The Onion article indicates, in its wry way, one of the key reasons there isn’t a single “button” - it would be way, way too dangerous. The problem with a big red button is that someone might actually press it. In the Radiolab interview, I attempted to paint in broad strokes the kind of vast technical and organizational networks that are needed to maintain the United States’ command and control systems - the systems that let you use nukes when you want to, and make sure that nukes don’t get used when they are not supposed to be used. Waging a nuclear war requires a lot more activity, spread out across a vast geographical area, and is a complex interaction of technical, organizational, and political issues. That is, nuclear war can’t be started by just pounding a big red button. You should listen to the whole episode, but - spoiler alert - the interesting thing about the nuclear “button” is that there isn’t a nuclear button. You can listen to the full episode here: “Buttons Not Buttons.” The Radiolab show was initially meant to be about buttons - in all senses of the term - but they kept finding that things that they thought were buttons were in fact either non-buttons or non-functional buttons. I was thinking about this article a few months ago because I was asked by my friend from grad school, Latif Nasser, if I would be interested in talking to him and NPR’s Robert Krulwich about “the button” for a Radiolab episode they were working on. “Did you know that if you sort of put enough weight on the button with your fingertip, you can feel a little slack there before it actually clicks?” Obama added. Even the physicality of the idea of a “button” is toyed with: Like much of The Onion’s satire, it is exceedingly clever in taking a common trope and pushing it into absurd territory. The article manages to wring a lot of humor out of the idea that on the President’s desk is a big red button that starts World War III. Though the president confirmed his schedule was packed with security briefings, public appearances, and cabinet meetings, he said he couldn’t help but steal a few glances at the bright red button, which is “right there, staring at, all the time.” One of my favorite articles from The Onion concerns the imagined allure of “the button”:ĭespite being constantly tempted by the seductive power of having an apocalyptic arsenal at his fingertips, President Barack Obama somehow made it through another day Tuesday without unlocking the box on his desk that houses “the button” and launching all 5,113 U.S.
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