In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
...there are well-defined rules about what
sorts of orders they are to follow immediately, and what sorts have to be
confirmed properly before action. (In particular, the possibility that a
President might become irresponsible or mentally ill was considered.)

At the moment, we don't even have to be attacked to use them...

Never have, at least not if "attacked" means "with WMDs". It has *long*
been US doctrine that nuclear first strike is a legitimate option once a
war has begun; this was an inevitable consequence of the 1950s decision to
rely on nuclear weapons and not maintain sufficiently-large conventional
forces to stop a Soviet conventional attack.

(Now mind you, even then, there were differences between official doctrine
and how a war would actually be fought. In practice, going nuclear is
such a grave decision with such unpredictable consequences that it would
have been resisted. Had a Soviet attack started out non-nuclear, Western
politicians inevitably would have dug in their heels and told the military
to stop the attack, somehow, without using nuclear weapons.)

As I recall, the Soviets did proclaim a "no first use" policy, but that
was easy for them, given (a) stronger conventional forces, (b) opponents
who were unlikely to start a war, and (c) fewer people who would comment
if weapons and training didn't quite match announced policy.
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