While there is a chain of command that could potentially stop a rogue president from unilaterally ordering a nuclear strike, at the end of the day the POTUS has an immense power in his ability to order a nuclear strike.
The heads of state don't have a button linked directly to the weapons, though. They have to command others to launch it, and commands can be disobeyed. Sure, the consequences of treason are dire, but a nuclear counterattack is also highly unpleasant.
Trump can't just pick up the phone can give a sub commander a direct order to launch the nukes (in particular because the boomers are incommunicado, so he needs to follow a certain protocol). There will be a number of officers on land who will need to relay his orders. And those officers will refuse to do so.
It still is. Most nations' Commanders in Chief (i.e. the Presidents) have the power to order a nuke launch by themselves. Of course they have advisers and so on, but that does not mean they have less of a power.
It is unlikely that the US can defend from an ICBM, although if warned in time, the President can survive and then command a retaliatory strike.
US President is probably the weakest world leader by far. He's extremely constrained by Congress, and can't even negotiate a treaty without Congress breathing down his back.
But in a war situation... which a nuclear strike would definitely be... the first priority is to keep the Commander-in-Chief alive so that he can organize the counter-assault. That is his job after all.
"he couldn't keep his short, fat fingers from a big red button he couldn't read the label for."
I am pretty sure neither Trump nor any previous presidents were never given that power. That briefcase is just a necessary prop used to build his image of most powerful human being around, but either it doesn't work or, if it does, before the red button pressed signal turns into an attack order it goes through some deep technical error checking and human approval list. That is the same reason there are two pilots on airliners (especially after Germanwings flight 9525): humans can go nuts, even best trained ones although rarely, but if they do with a nuclear button at hand the outcome can be catastrophic.
That's more likely the risk in much smaller countries when they develop the technology necessary to build atomic weaponry, which - though I'm against them on principle - is probably the reason why a very small number of nukes can be still useful as a deterrent.
But on a world size scale, today IMO atomic war should be the least of our concerns.
> If it comforts you, “the button” (the nuclear launch protocol doesn’t involve a literal button) requires confirmation from the Secretary of Defense, and the current Secretary of Defense, James Mattis.
This is not how it works, the president has the sole authority to decide to launch a nuclear attack. Quoting from Wikipedia[1].
> This verification process [involving the Secretary of Defense] deals solely with verifying that the order came from the actual President. The Secretary of Defense has no veto power and must comply with the president's order.
And from another article[2]:
> If the Secretary of Defense does not concur, then the President may in his sole discretion fire the Secretary. The Secretary of Defense has legal authority to approve the order, but cannot veto it.
That quote is paraphrasing e.g. this source in the New York Times[3]:
> “There’s no veto once the president has ordered a strike,” said Franklin C. Miller, a nuclear specialist who held White House and Defense Department posts for 31 years before leaving government service in 2005. “The president and only the president has the authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.”
Furthermore, the reference to the "button" (nuclear football) and the Secretary of Defense being involved is only a reference to the protocol around that specific launch system, but there's other methods of launching nuclear weapons available to the president, and which operate at his sole discretion.
Here's what ex-Secretary of Defense Bill Perry said about it[4]:
> “What is clear, is that the secretary of Defense does not have veto power on it. This is a decision of the president’s,” Perry told Politico’s “Off Message” podcast.
> [...]
> “The order can go directly from the president to the Strategic Air Command. The Defense secretary is not necessarily in that loop,” Perry said in the interview.
The notion that only the President could order a strike was sheer fantasy for much of the history of nuclear weapons. There were no codes required to activate them for the longest time; the only security mechanism was just, really, the morals and mental stability of half a dozen crew on any of dozens of bombers flying 24x7.
When the Air Force was forced to institute Permissive Action Link, a system whereby nukes couldn't be armed without a numeric code (in theory from the President's Football, I guess, or maybe from a place like NORAD, after the president authenticated himself to them)...they set the codes on all weapons to be zeros. That level of petulance over nuclear weapons is pretty mind-blowing.
It is, frankly, amazing that we've never had anyone go completely nuts and set one off on purpose. Never had one malfunction. Never intentionally, but for mistaken reasons, launched/dropped any.
We've come close to thinking we were getting nuked (as has the USSR; literally one Russian dude deciding to play it safe was all that really kept both the USSR and the US from near total annihilation. A satellite told him it had detected a launch and he knew there was a chance it was sunlight glint. Yes, the USSR was relying on a satellite to decide on whether to start WW3...that could be triggered by sunlight glinting into its lenses.
There's also the rather shocking number of nuclear weapons the US Air Force has 'accidentally' dropped or had in planes that crashed. In some of the incidents, a number of the safety interlock systems were found to be "satisfied." Some of the warheads haven't been found, which is also quite disturbing. Somewhere out there is at least one nuke, waiting for anyone to grab it and make a dirty bomb.
Oh, and the group that transports nuclear materials (not sure if this includes weapons? I think the Air Force handles that?) around the country is apparently a total shitshow. Undertrained, overworked, underpaid, underfunded guys who manage to get into all sorts of trouble, including losing their handguns, getting drunk while on duty, and so on.
I think the only compelling argument someone could make with me for the existence of a higher power is that we haven't yet had an accidental nuclear weapon detonation.
Do you mean he would use nuclear weapons against its own people?
What's the stop gap for the military in case an order this crazy would be made? Is he respected enough in the military circles that they would carry out his command?
Well before the launch codes were FORCED onto the generals, there were supposedly about a dozen generals who could launch nukes on their own without specific authorization from the POTUS.
Understand this was allowed initially in case POTUS was incapacitated or cut off from communication but still...
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