“He wouldn’t/couldn’t do that-it just doesn’t work that way” stopped being funny on Inauguration Day.
Contrary to your assumptions, the actual power the President has to order a nuclear strike is not from the Constitution, but a law passed by Congress. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Here’s a lengthy discussion on the background behind it.
So yes, a legislative solution is possible. ‘All’ Congress has to do is Amend that act to specify the exact requirements for the use of nuclear weapons to be no first use without the consent of Congress.
Aside from issues of nuking a site in the US, wouldn’t any foreign action carry the possibility that the prez is privy to information not available even to a guy like the one quoted in the OP?
The system works well when the POTUS is stable. The present president is demonstrativley not stable, which puts you and the world at great risk. The congressional solutions are either to impeach and convict under your federal consititution’s article 2 section 4, or to to replace section 4 of your federal constitution’s section 25th amendment.
Exactly. And what I think that particular general is trying to say is that if the President unilaterally decided to escalate to nuclear out of a fit of pique or irritation at some snarky comment from N. Korea, that would probably count as unlawful, based on the lack of proportionality, threat, etc…
An illegal nuclear strike would be Traitor Trump waking up one day, seeing more proof of his perfidy splashed throughout the news and to distract the public, order a nuclear strike on Pyongyang, particularly if Kim had just called him out as a wanker again the day before.
Is there such a thing as DEFCON, and would it have an effect on responsiveness? I mean, if the person on the other side of the football looks up and sees a that the alert level might not justify the launch, would he be likely to get a secondary confirmation?
This is a legal order. The guys in the silos and submarines and bomber wings would follow the pre-approved operations plans.
That’s why we don’t elect people to President who may not have the country’s best interest in mind.
How about someone just impersonating a President?
Bwahahahaha.
Who’s WE Kemosabe?
Not sure what the sarcasm tag is 
The folks with keys will launch when told. The people who can determine the legality of the order, and pass it along or not, are the high ranking folks up at the NCA level and in the national command centers.
Those are two very different sets of folks with very different responsibilities and access to very different data.
At least prior to 2016 we didn’t.
It is precisely because we have the President we do that suddenly concerns about illegal orders are to the fore.
According to this:
It really was a GQ answer, though a lot of other stuff was brought up. The President doesn’t need congressional approval, as other posters have asserted. Under the two man rule, he just needs the Sec Def (or whoever is next in the chain) to agree then it’s nukes away.
People…this is why it’s crucial we elect sane and rational folks to be President. It’s freaking scary that Trump has this power, but have it he does. Hopefully Mattis will be the check on anything really insane that Trump might attempt. :eek:
So if the President is trying to actually do this - fire nukes over a tweet or is acting even more incoherent than usual and asking to end the world - who in the White House can actually have him taken out of power for mental incompetence? Does it take a majority of the cabinet to agree to do this? Specific members?
I keep thinking of the inability of the Air force to scramble up any fighter jets on 9/11. And the lie about WMB before ‘W’ bombed Iraq. I am not sure I trust any of them. Let alone the POTUS, we are doomed, I tell you!
Btw, nice work there LSLguy!
If it comes from the President authorizing the use of nuclear weapons against a foreign country, it’s legal.
Yep. Kind of scary. And the reason I didn’t vote for him.
You keep insisting this. It’s not that simple. The US is signatory to various treaties on the conduct of warfare. Which have the force of US law.
Post #9 contains a link to a small 250 page summary of DoD thinking on the legalities of war. After you’ve digested that info, please come back.
I like to think that there will be a Denzel Washington in the conn of every sub such as there was in Crimson Tide. Especially when there is the slightest change the president is the least bit unstable. Didn’t feel that way until 2017, but I certainly do now.
Plenty of people can stop such an order from being carried out; specifically, all of the people who actually would be carrying it out. The President doesn’t have a literal launch button in The Football: He has a phone. With that phone, he would call someone high up in the military. Who would in turn call up people on the next level of the chain of command, all the way through until you eventually get to the ordinary servicemembers in the silos, submarines, and airplanes who actually do have launch buttons. Any one of those people, at any level of the chain of command, can simply refuse their orders, legally or not.
Would they? That’s a different question, and one to which we don’t actually know the answer. We know what they’ve been trained to do, and we know what they’ve said they would do, but until it actually happens, we don’t know what they actually would do.