In an 1980s nuclear war how many would refuse to launch?

According to the wiki, US Secretary of Defence must sign the Presidential order for nuclear strike or resign immediately in case of protest. For the last option, next-in-command now takes the temporary place of Secretary of Defence and must sign the Presidential order or resign as well. And so it goes until the very end of military chain of command.
you would think you get a couple tries and then the process is called off..
 
My contributions have been about strategic nukes. The questions of whether tactical nukes will inevitably lead to strategic nukes has been discussed at length, with arguments on both sides and issues of naval versus land use. The NATO statement on first use has to do with use in response to a Soviet /WP invasion, given at times the questionable ability for NATO to stop a conventional attack by conventional means. This is not a "we feel free to use tacnukes when we invade you" statement.
 

SsgtC

Banned
"NATO has repeatedly rejected calls for adopting No First Use policy, arguing that pre-emptive nuclear strike is a key option, in order to have a credible deterrent that could compensate for the overwhelming conventional weapon superiority enjoyed by the Soviet Army in the Eurasian land mass. The United States has refused to adopt a no-first-use policy, saying that it "reserves the right to use" nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use)

So is this about tactical nukes only which would have been dispatched across the Europe in case of war? Or there were some conditions when enemy cities and industrial plans could have been attacked with nuclear weapons as part of first strike?
While NATO does not agree to a No First Use policy, their defensive use only policy in practice is a no first use policy. The reason I say that, is it was largely assumed that if WWIII kicked off, the Soviets were going to go nuclear from the start.
 
you would think you get a couple tries and then the process is called off..
Also I'm thinking that at some point you may run out of people who have the necessary knowledge, access codes etc to transmit the orders to the next step in the chain of command. I do realize new people could be given the needed skills and materials but this would presumably take time. This is all just pure speculation on my part.
 
As a retired Navy submariner I find this pretty offensive. I’ll go with not a chance in hell of any military person disobeying this lawful order.

From wikipedia:

In 1996, the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, issued an Advisory Opinion concerned with the "Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons". The court ruled that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons would violate various articles of international law, including the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

If this is true, an order to use nuclear weapons wouldn't be legal at all, because the US, like most states of the world, have signed and ratified the mentionned documents. From a strictly legal point of view, disobeying would be the only legal option in this situation.
 
The court considered the matter of deterrence, which involves a threat to use nuclear weapons under certain circumstances on a potential enemy or an enemy. Was such a threat illegal? The court decided, with some judges dissenting, that, if a threatened retaliatory strike was consistent with military necessity and proportionality, it would not necessarily be illegal. (Judgement paragraphs 37–50)

  1. The court replied that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law; However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake"[20]
In a quick reading of the wiki article, IMHO the use of them is still legal.

The original question asked about a 1980s nuclear war. The court decision is from the late 1990s.
 
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At the risk of starting a flame war, there is no international "law" as some people consider it. There are numerous signed agreements, such as the Geneva Conventions, international agreements on maritime rules and related economic zone rules and so forth. There are also precedents, such as the various precedents that came from the Nuremberg trials. Then there are the more general Augustinian concepts of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a wonderful document to be sure, but it is an aspirational document and nothing more.

There is very little of what most people consider international law that is accepted by all countries, and several parts of this "law" that some countries specifically reject. The most important thing is that there is no enforcement mechanism, no police car that will pull up with flashing lights and "international law police" written on the side. While selling and receiving stolen property may be illegal, if property stolen in town A is openly sold in town B and the town B government and police do nothing about, what force does that law have. If the USA and the EU treat Myanmar as a pariah because of what they are doing to the Rohingya but China continues to trade with them, advance credits etc what next - is anyone "arresting" China as an accomplice?

International rules of behavior; commercial, peacetime, and wartime, and aspirational documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are good things, except as they are signed treaties and have some sort of enforcement mechanism, they are not "law". The reality is all of these often end up as guidelines for "victor's justice" - if you will statutes on how to prosecute violations.
 
While NATO does not agree to a No First Use policy, their defensive use only policy in practice is a no first use policy. The reason I say that, is it was largely assumed that if WWIII kicked off, the Soviets were going to go nuclear from the start.

As well as Chemical or Bio use

Any NBC use by Warsaw Pact Forces, that releases US forces to respond with the 'special' Tactical weapons. All indications of every WP warplan that has come to light was heavy on the Chemicals use on Day One
 
Also I'm thinking that at some point you may run out of people who have the necessary knowledge, access codes etc to transmit the orders to the next step in the chain of command. I do realize new people could be given the needed skills and materials but this would presumably take time. This is all just pure speculation on my part.

But there are procedures to prevent decapitation strikes from stopping NCA release
 
Are you telling people it is a preemptive strike? That they need to have things ready just in case? Or are people being told the other side has launched first, and you need to return fire and destroy as many of the enemy launch sites as possible before your entire home regain gets turned into glowing glass?
 
Clandango...

...To turn the ground into glass requires vastly more energy than demolition, cratering and flash-burns, so please do not make statements like Post #114. Nuclear weapons are powerful, but not all-powerful. Radiological fallout and conflagrations tend to be grossly exaggerated by CND as a scare-tactic, so please do not fall into that trap either. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is a reliable and respected source, if you need a neutral one.
 

Philip

Donor
Are you telling people it is a preemptive strike? That they need to have things ready just in case? Or are people being told the other side has launched first, and you need to return fire and destroy as many of the enemy launch sites as possible before your entire home regain gets turned into glowing glass?

Neither. The operators receive an Emergency Action Message detailing the preselected targets to launch against. There is no explanation of why.
 
Just out of curiosity, for those of you familiar with Crimson Tide, does the movie clearly miss the mark in terms of (a) the likely mentality of the people occupying the key positions (Captain, XO, Chief of the Boat, Weps, and the officers who supported the deposed Captain) and the decisions they made, and/or (b) the procedural ambiguities (the second garbled EAM, the XO's refusal to concur, and the Captain being disallowed from arbitrarily relieving the XO) that gave rise to the situation? The movie ended with a text note saying that the U.S. has changed its procedures so that the top officers on a nuclear submarine would not have that kind of responsibility in the future, but I don't know if the rest of it was based on something that conceivably could or would happen.
 
Virtually every sub guy I’ve ever talked to, myself included, will not even talk about that POS movie. The USN refused to be involved in the production. It is so far from what really goes on that it’s not even funny. Not going to discuss, but procedures did change during Clinton years. IMHO with 23 years experience as a submariner, the events of that movie would not happen. The Navy doesn’t just pick anyone to be CO or XO of a Trident.
 
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