Yes. The president is provided with a new nuclear launch code daily, but cannot launch the weapons unilaterally. They require a second launch code that is in the hands of the Secretary of Defense.
The system is designed to prevent a drunken president from ordering a launch by himself, but it is not foolproof. It is hypothetically possible for the president to fire the Secretary of Defense and replace him, ad interim, with someone who will provide the second code; or to seize the Secretary of Defense’s codes and provide them both himself.
I think there is a real possibility that the military would ignore a launch order unless they agreed that there was an imminent existential threat to the United States. No such threat has existed since the Treaty of Paris was signed with Great Britain in 1783.
Read other answers by Ernest W. Adams on Quora:
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from Quora http://ift.tt/2e69o0W
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