I can tell you for certain that there are dozens of safeguards. That scenario not only isn't possible, it's not plausible. Yes the President has the "codes" but those codes don't launch the missiles [1]. The scenario described is one in which there are literally nuclear warheads on a ballistic trajectory headed to the US with a verified source of origin.
I think the trope stays around because people, despite what they say publicly, like the idea of an emperor style president with supreme power.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-nuclear-wea...
Alex Wellerstein is a academic researcher on the history of nuclear weapons, and he describes the situation thus:
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/11/18/the-president-and-...
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>>Are there any checks in place to keep the US President from starting a nuclear war?
What's amazing about this question, really, is how seriously it misunderstands the logic of the US command and control system. It gets it exactly backwards.
The entire point of the US command and control system is to guarantee that the President and _only_ the President is capable of authorizing nuclear war whenever he needs to. It is about enabling the President's power, not checking or restricting him.
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The entire point of the US command and control system is to guarantee that the President and only the President is capable of authorizing nuclear war whenever he needs to.
Yes, legally and formally. Informally though, as I said, it won't go down like that, especially if it's not completely unambiguous that there is a nuclear attack on the US.
http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-59-the-des...
The captain and some fixed number of executive officers. Possibly with redundancy for one or two crew being dead. The auth codes would cause a safe to unlock or message to de-crypt.
Presumably the instructions would be delivered to each authenticating member so that all could receive the orders simultaneously.
In practice however I'd certainly be surprised to learn that there were absolutely zero checks on the process as suggested in the article.
Are there verified nuclear warheads on verified trajectories from verified origins?
Does the US President need to retaliated?
They interview ex-Secretary of Defense William Perry asking him what controls there are, if any, on a crazy president just willy-nilly deciding to nuke something.
He says there's absolutely none, even if the president is in a room full of people who vehemently disagree with him he alone makes the call to launch.
The President can make the call to launch and everyone in the room can ignore him, arrest him, tape his mouth shut.
Or just shoot him.
Edit: fixed a word
There's an argument to be made for checks on presidential power to wage nuclear war at a pin drop. President Trump pulling us back from the joint establishment Democrat and establishment Republican push for worldwide nuclear armageddon is not it.
but I did learn the word "Verisimilitude" the other day.
The only check currently seems to be people disobeying his orders, and even that is accounted for to some extent (see "mutiny is unlikely" in the article you cited).
It remains possible that ranking members of the executive branch and military might cooperate to make sure the president is isolated and unable to execute the protocol, and perhaps even conceivable (if unlikely) that enough of the military would refuse to participate. But that's the only real check, and it extralegal rather than any part of the system.
If you've ever been suspicious of "the deep state", think about that for a minute here, because it's really just another catchy term for the one of a half-handful of checks on the power under discussion here.
> I think the trope stays around because people, despite what they say publicly, like the idea of an emperor style president with supreme power.
I suspect that people really want to believe the system works, it can't be that messed up, someone else thought of this, some one else is paying attention, and they want things to be better, not worse, and they will take care of it for you.
But the system will fail if "the whole chain is stupid." This is why it's so dangerous to have a President obsessed with loyalty.
A recent radiolab episode (http://www.radiolab.org/story/nukes/) made a pretty convincing argument that any US president could on a whim destroy the world. It goes into the whole history of why that power was given to a civilian, and not the military.
Don't forget about this lad!
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
I.e. he must convince the Vice President et al. that ending all human life on Earth is a good idea.
Which is to say, the orders may not be followed by the persons at the switch. I make no claim that they will, or will not, be followed. I merely point out that rules aren't always followed.
They absolutely have the real authority (ability) to refuse the order, and then the real authority to prevent the nuke from being launched (by eating their key, shooting anybody else that comes into the room, shooting the key/console, etc).