Yeah, turns out B-52Gs and B-1Bs aren't that easy to land. (Can't speak for B-2s, as they were just entering the inventory when I left the service - figure some of the targeting data we sent to "Groom Lake" was for those, because I know we sent some bomber data there before the Spirit was unveiled, but we didn't need to know the flight characteristics of the bombers involved.) The idea wasn't just to get the planes out of enemy airspace, but to land the crews safely. And landing a B-52 without a proper runway is about as easy as doing the same thing with a 747.
I also pushed to use the bomb bus from MIRVed ICBMs as an impact weapon, as it'd be coming in just slightly slower than a meteor, but I don't think the officers took me seriously.
On this note, I would point out that the RAF apparently didn't have this illusion: In the event the V-Force was ordered to glass Moscow and other Soviet targets, the crews were instructed to keep flying forward, because Mongolia was going to likely be the only place on the planet which wasn't obliterated in the resulting exchange.
Well, one of the stated principles of MAD was that any enemy of the United States that was vile enough to want to Nuke us into submission was an enemy worth nuking into submission. Thus the goal of making public statements about MAD was deterrence.
Well, one of the stated principles of MAD was that any enemy of the United States that was vile enough to want to Nuke us into submission was an enemy worth nuking into submission. Thus the goal of making public statements about MAD was deterrence.
Unfortunately there's this old saw about MAD that it only takes one madman to wreck it. There's a later theory postulated under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, appropriately nicknamed NUTS, that it's possible to have a limited nuclear exchange without ending the world.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Well, one of the stated principles of MAD was that any enemy of the United States that was vile enough to want to Nuke us into submission was an enemy worth nuking into submission. Thus the goal of making public statements about MAD was deterrence.
Unfortunately there's this old saw about MAD that it only takes one madman to wreck it. There's a later theory postulated under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, appropriately nicknamed NUTS, that it's possible to have a limited nuclear exchange without ending the world.
That's just it... the goal of MAD was not to wreck the world, merely to kill the other guy. That who "end the world" shtick was pessimistic assessments of the level of nuclear fallout.
Well, one of the stated principles of MAD was that any enemy of the United States that was vile enough to want to Nuke us into submission was an enemy worth nuking into submission. Thus the goal of making public statements about MAD was deterrence.
Unfortunately there's this old saw about MAD that it only takes one madman to wreck it. There's a later theory postulated under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, appropriately nicknamed NUTS, that it's possible to have a limited nuclear exchange without ending the world.
That's just it... the goal of MAD was not to wreck the world, merely to kill the other guy. That who "end the world" shtick was pessimistic assessments of the level of nuclear fallout.
It could also be explained as how the World Wars started, but on a nuclear level. Every major nation has an alliance with other nations which ends up in a chain reaction of retaliation through nukes. So if Great Britain and the US has an alliance and Russia and China has an alliance, then Russia nuking the US will cause Great Britain to nuke Russia, and finally China nukes Great Britain. If World War II was fought with nukes, then only Africa, Australia, parts of Asia, and some islands would be relatively safe, but they still have to deal with the massive amounts of Fallout.
Well, one of the stated principles of MAD was that any enemy of the United States that was vile enough to want to Nuke us into submission was an enemy worth nuking into submission. Thus the goal of making public statements about MAD was deterrence.
Unfortunately there's this old saw about MAD that it only takes one madman to wreck it. There's a later theory postulated under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, appropriately nicknamed NUTS, that it's possible to have a limited nuclear exchange without ending the world.
That's just it... the goal of MAD was not to wreck the world, merely to kill the other guy. That who "end the world" shtick was pessimistic assessments of the level of nuclear fallout.
Actually, you've got that backwards, Stark is closer to the mark. MAD is the idea that the war won't start to begin with because both sides know that if either one of them starts a war, they'll both be totally destroyed (regardless of whether the rest of the world goes with them: the giants hardly cared about the ants they were trampling underfoot even without nuclear weapons being involved). And frankly, Edmund Blackadder has the right idea about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGxAYeeyoIc
It only took one ultranationalist loony in Serbia killing a VIP (a VIP who was sympathetic to continued Serbian independence, I might add) to get both alliances throwing artillery shells at each other.
NUTS is the opposite of that in both scale and thinking. It's the idea of limited use of nuclear weapons being a rung on the "ladder of escalation". Which I think might have worked in the late '40s/early '50s, but is a dangerous proposition when both sides together have enough nukes to glass the planet a dozen times over: it's hard to un-ring the bell once it's been rung. It's the same reason the US and Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty: a side might think it can shoot first and survive if they have ABMs to shoot down incoming ICBMs.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
But, "one loony" would have to be the head of a major world power. People like Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-Un don't count.
Do I need to point out who the current US president is?
Hell, back around Watergate time when Nixon was starting to come unhinged, there was an Air Force officer who got kicked out of the service for questioning the still-current state of affairs where there's no check on POTUS's authority to launch a nuclear attack at will. That trusting in MAD might be foolhardy is not a new concept.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
But, "one loony" would have to be the head of a major world power. People like Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-Un don't count.
Do I need to point out who the current US president is?
Hell, back around Watergate time when Nixon was starting to come unhinged, there was an Air Force officer who got kicked out of the service for questioning the still-current state of affairs where there's no check on POTUS's authority to launch a nuclear attack at will. That trusting in MAD might be foolhardy is not a new concept.
It's kind of his job. He's the commander of the US military, it's literally written in the Constitution. Who else would make that decision? Congress? Someone appointed by the President? Also... you don't get kicked out simply for saying you don't like something.
If the officer openly questioned his C-in-C's competence, dismissal could happen. However, it's part of the oath every military member takes - "...to obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me..."
Even in USAF Basic Training in the '80s, it was made quite plain to us that this involves an affirmative duty to disobey illegal orders. Now, mind you, you'd best be sure of your ground, because you might have to defend your actions at a court martial, but if you believe the order to be illegal, there's your defense. And if you carry out an order that you think is illegal, that's a court-martial offense there, too.
MAD, or "Mutually Assured Destruction", required a retaliatory launch when an attack was detected. That's where the authority is nearly unchecked, although (as one skit on a Fallout 4 radio-mod points out) the President doesn't make that decision completely alone. ("Doctor, there is no 'big red button'. The generals provide me with their advice, then I give the authorization")). An initial launch, however, would be a violation of both US and international law, and passing the order to launch down the chain to the bases would be obeying an illegal order. (Hence Gen. Hyten, the current head of Strategic Command, stating last month that he would refuse any such order, and discuss what the legal options would be with the President.)
> @markhawkman said: > It's kind of his job. He's the commander of the US military, it's literally written in the Constitution. Who else would make that decision? Congress? Someone appointed by the President? Also... you don't get kicked out simply for saying you don't like something.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Also... you don't get kicked out simply for saying you don't like something.
used to be around that same time period you could get kicked out for something you can't control...something you absolutely CAN control and chose not to definitely would've gotten you kicked out
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
One of the mods you can download for Fallout 4 is a radio station called Atomic Radio. It's an attempt to create a '50s-style radio ambiance that fits into Fallout lore - a pretty good attempt, in my opinion. One of the skits performed is a radio play about a time traveler who wants to keep the President from pressing The Button.
"Doctor, there is no 'big red button'. The generals tell me their opinions, and then I give the authorization."
(Of course, the traveler then insists that there must be a button, and later reports back to his colleague, "I went all the way back to the invention of the button, but it was no use!")
Similarly, here in the real world, there's no "big red button". A President might try to give such an order, but if he hasn't consulted his generals, and if it's not a MAD scenario (which is retaliation to a confirmed first-strike launch, not a first-strike launch itself), the order probably won't get passed along, codes or no codes.
As Commander STRATCOM notes, any order to launch a nuclear first strike would very probably be an illegal order - and oaths taken by both officers and enlisted swear only to obey legal orders. If you believe the order to be in violation of the law, you have an obligation to disobey. (Of course, you'd better be pretty sure of your ground, because that's going to be your defense at the court martial... )
And the officer in that story was discharged because a) even as a missileer he didn't understand that ordering a launch is not the sole provision of the C-in-C, and b) he refused to stop publicly questioning the sanity of his C-in-C. It wasn't an abstract question he was asking - he repeatedly asked if he should obey orders from an insane Nixon. That's called disrespecting one's superiors, which violates Article 133 of the UCMJ ("conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman"). You ask questions about such obedience in general terms ("what if I have reason to believe one of my superiors has gone insane?"), and express doubts in private. You don't say for publication that you think the C-in-C might in fact be a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
Also... you don't get kicked out simply for saying you don't like something.
used to be around that same time period you could get kicked out for something you can't control...something you absolutely CAN control and chose not to definitely would've gotten you kicked out
Enh, I read what those links had and Hering's issue was that he kept at it, not that he asked the wrong question. Apparently it came up when he was being interviewed to determine if he was a good choice to have launch oversight responsibilities. But after he asked the question of the interviewer, he went beyond asking a question and started making a public political statement. Like Jon said, at some point it becomes "willful insubordination" and "conduct unbecoming an officer". It wasn't until that point that he got kicked out.
hence my comment about something you can control but choose not to...he shot his mouth off in a way he had to know would've gotten him in trouble, yet he did it anyway
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
One of the mods you can download for Fallout 4 is a radio station called Atomic Radio. It's an attempt to create a '50s-style radio ambiance that fits into Fallout lore - a pretty good attempt, in my opinion. One of the skits performed is a radio play about a time traveler who wants to keep the President from pressing The Button.
"Doctor, there is no 'big red button'. The generals tell me their opinions, and then I give the authorization."
(Of course, the traveler then insists that there must be a button, and later reports back to his colleague, "I went all the way back to the invention of the button, but it was no use!")
Similarly, here in the real world, there's no "big red button". A President might try to give such an order, but if he hasn't consulted his generals, and if it's not a MAD scenario (which is retaliation to a confirmed first-strike launch, not a first-strike launch itself), the order probably won't get passed along, codes or no codes.
As Commander STRATCOM notes, any order to launch a nuclear first strike would very probably be an illegal order - and oaths taken by both officers and enlisted swear only to obey legal orders. If you believe the order to be in violation of the law, you have an obligation to disobey. (Of course, you'd better be pretty sure of your ground, because that's going to be your defense at the court martial... )
And the officer in that story was discharged because a) even as a missileer he didn't understand that ordering a launch is not the sole provision of the C-in-C, and b) he refused to stop publicly questioning the sanity of his C-in-C. It wasn't an abstract question he was asking - he repeatedly asked if he should obey orders from an insane Nixon. That's called disrespecting one's superiors, which violates Article 133 of the UCMJ ("conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman"). You ask questions about such obedience in general terms ("what if I have reason to believe one of my superiors has gone insane?"), and express doubts in private. You don't say for publication that you think the C-in-C might in fact be a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
That doesn't address the question Mr. Hering raised, though. See, there's a little problem with invoking the Little v. Barreme/Nuremberg precedent here: an illegal order is one thing, but an unwise but legal order? That's something else. AFAIK there isn't any actual rule requiring consultation; everywhere I've read about it, it's the President who has the final say (though if you say otherwise, I'll bow to your expertise). It also doesn't consider the constitutional point I raised earlier, that it's the province of Congress to declare war, not the President (either unilaterally or on the advice of his generals).
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
And that is why consultation with military officials, in order to confirm launch, is required by law. It's not "launch on warning", it's "launch on confirmation". And even then, it only ever applied to Soviet and Chinese forces - no one else has ever had the launch capability to seriously damage, much less effectively destroy, the US in two to three waves of missiles and bombers.
The Constitution places the President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces - but military law dictates what exactly that entails. He can, for instance, order deployment into a hostile situation without consultation with Congress for up to 90 days; however, decisions at the field level are handled by local command (technically, a division could be dispatched to a forward operating base, then completely refuse to leave the base if in the divisional commander's opinion the situation didn't call for them to do so). And while he does have to approve a nuclear launch, his approval is not the only one necessary. Without the agreement of STRATCOM's commander, the weapons go nowhere.
I can't speak to the Russian chain of command, of course - I only served in the USAF, not any other nation's service. The fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis almost went nuclear, but didn't quite causes me to suspect that there are multiple levels of authorization required there as well, however.
That doesn't address the question Mr. Hering raised, though. See, there's a little problem with invoking the Little v. Barreme/Nuremberg precedent here: an illegal order is one thing, but an unwise but legal order?
Define "unwise"... Nuking a country is an act of war, if congress has not declared war on that nation?
The whole concept of MAD also fails to consider false positives:
No it doesn't. MAD isn't a hair trigger reflex. It's a coldly calculated philosophy of war.
I don't expect MAD to come in to play these days. Most nations just didn't have the capability. China could do it, but I really can't see the US going to war with China. Too many economic ties.
And Mr. Trump nuking Russia? I don't see that being a thing...
North Korea, on the other hand, seems like a possible conflict in the near future. But North Korea is North Korea, so I'm not entirely convinced that they really have working nuclear missiles. Even if they do, I suspect we'd have a decent chance of keeping them from flying, either through their incompetence or outside intervention (ours or China's).
An August estimate I could find suggests that they have missiles that could reach Alaska, and they might be close to having a nuclear warhead to put on that warhead. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-17399847.
So the Hwasong-15 might have the range neccessary to reach US mainland and carry a warhead. And there might be a warhead available for it. It may be deemed "combat-ready" after a few additional tests sometime in 2018-
Of course, this wouldn't create a MAD scenario yet, since NK won't have the number of warheads and missiles to really "assure destruction". Of course, the US could destroy NK with its nukes, but would they really do it? I don't know how practical a conventional military attack would be, but it also depends on the goals - destroying their nuclear capability with air strikes is probably doable, taking over the country would be a long and bloody affair, as it always is.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
An August estimate I could find suggests that they have missiles that could reach Alaska, and they might be close to having a nuclear warhead to put on that warhead. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-17399847.
So the Hwasong-15 might have the range neccessary to reach US mainland and carry a warhead. And there might be a warhead available for it. It may be deemed "combat-ready" after a few additional tests sometime in 2018-
Of course, this wouldn't create a MAD scenario yet, since NK won't have the number of warheads and missiles to really "assure destruction". Of course, the US could destroy NK with its nukes, but would they really do it? I don't know how practical a conventional military attack would be, but it also depends on the goals - destroying their nuclear capability with air strikes is probably doable, taking over the country would be a long and bloody affair, as it always is.
We don't need to nuke North Korea. There's only one thing the US has to ensure the destruction of in order to keep them from pressing the button: their supreme leader. If the dictator thinks he's going to die if he presses the button, he's not going to press the button.
An August estimate I could find suggests that they have missiles that could reach Alaska, and they might be close to having a nuclear warhead to put on that warhead. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-17399847.
So the Hwasong-15 might have the range neccessary to reach US mainland and carry a warhead. And there might be a warhead available for it. It may be deemed "combat-ready" after a few additional tests sometime in 2018-
Of course, this wouldn't create a MAD scenario yet, since NK won't have the number of warheads and missiles to really "assure destruction". Of course, the US could destroy NK with its nukes, but would they really do it? I don't know how practical a conventional military attack would be, but it also depends on the goals - destroying their nuclear capability with air strikes is probably doable, taking over the country would be a long and bloody affair, as it always is.
We don't need to nuke North Korea. There's only one thing the US has to ensure the destruction of in order to keep them from pressing the button: their supreme leader. If the dictator thinks he's going to die if he presses the button, he's not going to press the button.
There is only one way to prevent a crazy madman from pressing the button. Although at this point in time, I am not sure if the North Korean leader is a crazy madman or just bluffing.
Comments
On this note, I would point out that the RAF apparently didn't have this illusion: In the event the V-Force was ordered to glass Moscow and other Soviet targets, the crews were instructed to keep flying forward, because Mongolia was going to likely be the only place on the planet which wasn't obliterated in the resulting exchange.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
My character Tsin'xing
Unfortunately there's this old saw about MAD that it only takes one madman to wreck it. There's a later theory postulated under Nixon, Ford, and Carter, appropriately nicknamed NUTS, that it's possible to have a limited nuclear exchange without ending the world.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
My character Tsin'xing
It could also be explained as how the World Wars started, but on a nuclear level. Every major nation has an alliance with other nations which ends up in a chain reaction of retaliation through nukes. So if Great Britain and the US has an alliance and Russia and China has an alliance, then Russia nuking the US will cause Great Britain to nuke Russia, and finally China nukes Great Britain. If World War II was fought with nukes, then only Africa, Australia, parts of Asia, and some islands would be relatively safe, but they still have to deal with the massive amounts of Fallout.
Actually, you've got that backwards, Stark is closer to the mark. MAD is the idea that the war won't start to begin with because both sides know that if either one of them starts a war, they'll both be totally destroyed (regardless of whether the rest of the world goes with them: the giants hardly cared about the ants they were trampling underfoot even without nuclear weapons being involved). And frankly, Edmund Blackadder has the right idea about it:
It only took one ultranationalist loony in Serbia killing a VIP (a VIP who was sympathetic to continued Serbian independence, I might add) to get both alliances throwing artillery shells at each other.
NUTS is the opposite of that in both scale and thinking. It's the idea of limited use of nuclear weapons being a rung on the "ladder of escalation". Which I think might have worked in the late '40s/early '50s, but is a dangerous proposition when both sides together have enough nukes to glass the planet a dozen times over: it's hard to un-ring the bell once it's been rung. It's the same reason the US and Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty: a side might think it can shoot first and survive if they have ABMs to shoot down incoming ICBMs.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
But, "one loony" would have to be the head of a major world power. People like Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-Un don't count.
My character Tsin'xing
Do I need to point out who the current US president is?
Hell, back around Watergate time when Nixon was starting to come unhinged, there was an Air Force officer who got kicked out of the service for questioning the still-current state of affairs where there's no check on POTUS's authority to launch a nuclear attack at will. That trusting in MAD might be foolhardy is not a new concept.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Mr. Garrison? He just nuked Toronto in Canada.
My character Tsin'xing
Even in USAF Basic Training in the '80s, it was made quite plain to us that this involves an affirmative duty to disobey illegal orders. Now, mind you, you'd best be sure of your ground, because you might have to defend your actions at a court martial, but if you believe the order to be illegal, there's your defense. And if you carry out an order that you think is illegal, that's a court-martial offense there, too.
MAD, or "Mutually Assured Destruction", required a retaliatory launch when an attack was detected. That's where the authority is nearly unchecked, although (as one skit on a Fallout 4 radio-mod points out) the President doesn't make that decision completely alone. ("Doctor, there is no 'big red button'. The generals provide me with their advice, then I give the authorization")). An initial launch, however, would be a violation of both US and international law, and passing the order to launch down the chain to the bases would be obeying an illegal order. (Hence Gen. Hyten, the current head of Strategic Command, stating last month that he would refuse any such order, and discuss what the legal options would be with the President.)
> It's kind of his job. He's the commander of the US military, it's literally written in the Constitution. Who else would make that decision? Congress? Someone appointed by the President? Also... you don't get kicked out simply for saying you don't like something.
1. He may command the US military, but what is also written in the Constitution is that only Congress can authorize him to use it offensively.
2. Apparently you do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Hering http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.single.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/08/09/what-if-the-president-ordering-a-nuclear-attack-isnt-sane-a-major-lost-his-job-for-asking/?utm_term=.a42d21216308
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
used to be around that same time period you could get kicked out for something you can't control...something you absolutely CAN control and chose not to definitely would've gotten you kicked out
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
"Doctor, there is no 'big red button'. The generals tell me their opinions, and then I give the authorization."
(Of course, the traveler then insists that there must be a button, and later reports back to his colleague, "I went all the way back to the invention of the button, but it was no use!")
Similarly, here in the real world, there's no "big red button". A President might try to give such an order, but if he hasn't consulted his generals, and if it's not a MAD scenario (which is retaliation to a confirmed first-strike launch, not a first-strike launch itself), the order probably won't get passed along, codes or no codes.
As Commander STRATCOM notes, any order to launch a nuclear first strike would very probably be an illegal order - and oaths taken by both officers and enlisted swear only to obey legal orders. If you believe the order to be in violation of the law, you have an obligation to disobey. (Of course, you'd better be pretty sure of your ground, because that's going to be your defense at the court martial...
And the officer in that story was discharged because a) even as a missileer he didn't understand that ordering a launch is not the sole provision of the C-in-C, and b) he refused to stop publicly questioning the sanity of his C-in-C. It wasn't an abstract question he was asking - he repeatedly asked if he should obey orders from an insane Nixon. That's called disrespecting one's superiors, which violates Article 133 of the UCMJ ("conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman"). You ask questions about such obedience in general terms ("what if I have reason to believe one of my superiors has gone insane?"), and express doubts in private. You don't say for publication that you think the C-in-C might in fact be a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
My character Tsin'xing
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
That doesn't address the question Mr. Hering raised, though. See, there's a little problem with invoking the Little v. Barreme/Nuremberg precedent here: an illegal order is one thing, but an unwise but legal order? That's something else. AFAIK there isn't any actual rule requiring consultation; everywhere I've read about it, it's the President who has the final say (though if you say otherwise, I'll bow to your expertise). It also doesn't consider the constitutional point I raised earlier, that it's the province of Congress to declare war, not the President (either unilaterally or on the advice of his generals).
The whole concept of MAD also fails to consider false positives: there were half a dozen times (that we know of) when the Cold War could have gone hot because one side mistakenly believed the other had launched, including radar reflections off clouds and flocks of birds. Hell, as recently as 1995, Boris Yeltsin actually activated his football (the only time in history it's been done) because some numbskull in the Russian chain of command failed to pass the word to the radar operators that Norway was launching a research rocket.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
The Constitution places the President as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces - but military law dictates what exactly that entails. He can, for instance, order deployment into a hostile situation without consultation with Congress for up to 90 days; however, decisions at the field level are handled by local command (technically, a division could be dispatched to a forward operating base, then completely refuse to leave the base if in the divisional commander's opinion the situation didn't call for them to do so). And while he does have to approve a nuclear launch, his approval is not the only one necessary. Without the agreement of STRATCOM's commander, the weapons go nowhere.
I can't speak to the Russian chain of command, of course - I only served in the USAF, not any other nation's service. The fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis almost went nuclear, but didn't quite causes me to suspect that there are multiple levels of authorization required there as well, however.
My character Tsin'xing
And Mr. Trump nuking Russia? I don't see that being a thing...
North Korea, on the other hand, seems like a possible conflict in the near future. But North Korea is North Korea, so I'm not entirely convinced that they really have working nuclear missiles. Even if they do, I suspect we'd have a decent chance of keeping them from flying, either through their incompetence or outside intervention (ours or China's).
My character Tsin'xing
Another report on the matter:
http://www.38north.org/2017/07/jschilling071017/
And one more current:
http://www.38north.org/2017/11/melleman113017/
So the Hwasong-15 might have the range neccessary to reach US mainland and carry a warhead. And there might be a warhead available for it. It may be deemed "combat-ready" after a few additional tests sometime in 2018-
Of course, this wouldn't create a MAD scenario yet, since NK won't have the number of warheads and missiles to really "assure destruction". Of course, the US could destroy NK with its nukes, but would they really do it? I don't know how practical a conventional military attack would be, but it also depends on the goals - destroying their nuclear capability with air strikes is probably doable, taking over the country would be a long and bloody affair, as it always is.
My character Tsin'xing
There is only one way to prevent a crazy madman from pressing the button. Although at this point in time, I am not sure if the North Korean leader is a crazy madman or just bluffing.