The claim that U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, are maintained on “hair-trigger alert” has persisted despite multiple senior military leaders having discredited that falsehood.

One such accusant is President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the Department of Defense’s assistant secretary for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, Deborah Rosenblum. She has stated that U.S. and Russian ICBMs are “in a hair-trigger mode, leaving no time for either president to make a considered decision, if he or she thought the nation was under attack: No time to gather data, no time to figure out if it’s a spoof, no time to discover mistakes.” //

An ICBM is not like a loaded gun lying on the table with the safety off and a finger on the trigger. Nor is there a “big red button” waiting to be pressed.

To use an analogy coined by Richard, by the logic of “hair trigger,” our cars are on hair-trigger alert, too, waiting in the driveway ready to go. But you don’t see cars driving around accidentally. And cars only require three steps to go—turning on the engine, putting it into drive, and hitting to gas.