If a leader goes insane, do the worlds nuclear armed militaries have a contingency?

a reply to: Vroomfondel

Submarines use the 2 man rule however a 3rd officer, the weapons officer, has to concur all orders are valid. It takes the keys to arm the missiles and each officer only has the ability to open his/her safe. Even if 2 of 3 agree, without the 3rd key the nukes cant be armed / launched.

a reply to: Xcathdra

That's US protocol, right?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Xcathdra

That's US protocol, right?

US and iirc the Soviets used the same setup. There was an incident in the 80's when a soviet ballistic missile sub lost contact with soviet command. In that case their protocols were to assume a nuclear exchange with the US occurred and to launch their missiles. 2 of the 3 officers wanted to launch. The 3rd officer disagreed and no launch occurred. It was a good thing because it was a comm malfunction.


ETA - both the US and Russia have safeguards in place where if they are under a nuclear attack certain individuals can order a nuke missile launch on their own authority however certain criteria must exist.

a reply to: Xcathdra

There was an incident in the 80's when a soviet ballistic missile sub lost contact with soviet command.

I think that was a movie. James Bond was a Russian.

a reply to: Phage

1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident

On 26 September 1983, during the Cold War, the nuclear early-warning radar of the Soviet Union reported the launch of one intercontinental ballistic missile with four more missiles behind it, from bases in the United States. These missile attack warnings were suspected to be false alarms by Stanislav Petrov, an officer of the Soviet Air Defence Forces on duty at the command center of the early-warning system. He decided to wait for corroborating evidence—of which none arrived—rather than immediately relaying the warning up the chain-of-command. This decision is seen as having prevented a retaliatory nuclear attack against the United States and its NATO allies, which would likely have resulted in an escalation to a full-scale nuclear war. Investigation of the satellite warning system later determined that the system had indeed malfunctioned.

Vasily Arkhipov

Vasili Aleksandrovich Arkhipov (Russian: Василий Александрович Архипов, IPA: [vɐˈsʲilʲɪj ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ arˈxʲipəf], 30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Navy officer credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear launch (and, potentially, all-out nuclear war) during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response.[1]

As flotilla chief of staff and second-in-command of the diesel powered submarine B-59, Arkhipov refused to authorize the captain's use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision requiring the agreement of all three senior officers aboard.

it occurred twice. The sub incident occurred during the cuban missile crisis. The other was in 1983.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Torps aren't missiles but I get your point.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Xcathdra

Torps aren't missiles but I get your point.

True but the same system applies to any nuclear weapons release.

i know many here ( most in fact ) have more knowledge of all these legal war issues and protocols
how do things really work these days as i saw someone post about the 1973 war power acts
back in 2012...i think i was more stunned then jeff sessions here
this was 10 years ago
as he was told the UN and NATO have some type of "SHARED" being on top of chain of command of our us military
www.youtube.com...



so i wonder today
have our nuclear protocols or command structure changed and would we even know if the top of chain of command
now serves international command too with nuclear concerns ?

alot has changed and how up to date can one be
when to me chain of command now serves 2 commands if i got what that video displayed
could nato hold a flash emergency meeting and proceed
only to let us know later after the fact that they changed a treaty on the spot to take control of our nukes

a reply to: Xcathdra

right they call it LOOKING GLASS/COBRA BALL

the so called doomsday aircraft

the point of the POTUS having the final say is that he is a civilian and is in theory going to make the choice he thinks the people of the US would make if in his/her place.

once those ICBM's are on their way, they are going to hit their targets

i have always wondered about cruise missiles being able to be diverted or destroyed via detonation.

In the US a lot if not all out smart weapons are all LINKed in so there may be a way to stop them and as for the bombers they have a fail safe line that if they cross it they are to go on to their strike packages, that would be if all communications are wiped out

there is a rumor floating around Ukraine right now saying that the russian ship they sunk has nukes onboard already married to missiles

Russia has been uncharacteristically worried about dead sailors and their retrieval.

It was the Russian flag ship so i have no doubt a few nukes were on that ship, i wonder if they had diver and SOF in and on the water right after the missiles hit, Ukraine getting their hands one even 1 Russian made nuke would be a crazy windfall for them

they would have a nuclear deterrent, and that is if they didnt already keep a few before they game them up.

the way i look at it is, If Russia and the West go full bore WWlll it wont mater if nukes are involved and might actually be a better way of going out than say....weaponized Ebola or some super chemical weapon

just add this to the search bar of you tube if my link doesn't work
ET2yck7crVo

i was pretty alarmed reading between the lines of what the acting sec of def leon panetta was saying

a reply to: lasvegasteddy

The UN has no authority and is nowhere near the chain of command for the US military. As for NATO there is a NPG (nuclear planning group) that makes policy for the use of Nuclear weapons involving NATO. The US, UK and France are the 3 nuclear powers for NATO. In the end its up to the nuclear powers in NATO to deploy nukes or not to deploy nukes.

originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: lasvegasteddy

The UN has no authority and is nowhere near the chain of command for the US military. As for NATO there is a NPG (nuclear planning group) that makes policy for the use of Nuclear weapons involving NATO. The US, UK and France are the 3 nuclear powers for NATO. In the end its up to the nuclear powers in NATO to deploy nukes or not to deploy nukes.

so you did watch that video then ?

" In the end its up to the nuclear powers in NATO to deploy nukes or not to deploy nukes "
yeah i'm a tad lost there as the president can be or gets bypassed

a reply to: noscopebacon

The airborne command launch is its own entity separate from looking glass / other doomsday aircraft.

Russian cruisers, just like their American counterparts, are generally equipped with nukes (aside from Subs / air craft carriers). For it not to have nukes on board would be kinda weird in my opinion since Russia uses a nuclear triad setup like the US.

1 nuke wont be a deterrent since Russia has a crap ton of nukes. Using 1 nuke would be to cause mass deaths and nothing more. Since the response would be overwhelming (and more than 1 nuke Ukraine would be leveled, and then the earth).

The issue with Ebola is the northern hemisphere mitigates against the effectiveness of Ebola. The other thing to keep in mind is the UN definition of a WMD is stricter than the US. We view chemical / bio weapons as a wmd, opening the doors to a nuclear response from the US.

For France, it's this. A decision to engage French nuclear forces has to involve three personalities: the President, the Chef d’Etat-major des Armées (CEMA, the equivalent of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in its supervision over the French army, navy and air force) and his Chef d’Etat-major Particulier (CEMP, Private chief of staff). (Tertrais 2010: 112-113; Tertrais and Guisnel 2016: 246-250; Tertrais and Lewis 2019: 17).

For the UK it's the submarine commander who has complete launch authority. the idea is that the UK government cannot rely on secure comm links during a nuclear conflict, so the commander has to have authority.

For the US it's well known that the order has to be an appropriate response in proportion to the attack and that the President's order must be confirmed as valid, i.e. he's not nuts or having a breakdown or something similar.

For Russia it's a bit different, a kind of mix of French and UK systems with the order given by the President, the Defense Minister, or the Chief of the General Staff, through the Cheget nuclear suitcase, but and it's a big but, the actual codes are held by the General staff who can launch without direct political control.

I don't know about China, India, Pakistan, Israel or North Korea.

originally posted by: openminded2011
My question is mainly directed at the Russian Federation. Do they have a contingency in the event a leader goes insane and decides to start a nuclear war? Does the US have one as well? I am really wondering, and events lately make one wonder if any one person alone, should have the capability to start a nuclear war.


Do we have a contingency plane here in the USA? We literally have a whacked out dementia patient, running around shaking hands with the air in control of the nuke codes over here.

To make it worse hes spoke of regime change and our soldiers seeing a war we haven't declared.

a reply to: Xcathdra

That is the protocol. There are always fail-safes in place. But I think you have a better chance of finding sympathetic ears on a sub than in the Whitehouse or some foreign equivalent. The possibility of a sub being stacked with officers all on the same page is a real possibility. Its not just hollywood fodder. One could argue that the same potential exists at the Whitehouse or any other seat of government. But there are far fewer opposing hands to intervene on a sub.

How autonomous is an MZKT universal mobile launcher? Can one rogue crew just decide to launch a missile some day? I believe the idea was to make them independent of outside influence so they would still be viable in the event of an attack on Russia mainland.

a reply to: Vroomfondel

I am pretty sure the Navy does psychiatric reviews of commanders in sensitive positions but yes, it possible (imo highly unlikely).

As for the mobile launcher I have no idea how the Russian protocol system works in that regard.