east
Screwed up... till tha casket drops!!
this is the best series i've read on the topicDoes the president need permission to use nukes or does he get unilateral authority to use them whenever he wants to?
The President and the Bomb
The President and the Bomb: Redux
The President and the Bomb, Part III
The President and the Bomb, Part IV
tldr: "I keep getting asked one thing repeatedly: '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."