Legality of nuclear launch by the President

Can we have a discussion regarding the law of the United States of America, and the nuclear weapons she possesses?

In the Constitution, Article 2, Section 2, it named the President the commander in chief of the Army and Navy. And since the nuclear arsenal is under direct control of either of those branches does that not mean he is the commander in chief of the nuclear arsenal? Or should nuclear weapons be given a special branch in the military? And if so should he still be the one in charge.

Also, Congress is given the power to declare war in the Constitution, would a nuclear launch need a declaration of war? There is no law regarding that, however, there is the "War Powers Act" which gives the president the ability to initiate a war if the Union is threatened by an aggressor. Does that not justify a nuclear launch in legal terms?

Also for the pic related.
Would it be treason if a general such as in the pic refused to launch nukes after being ordered? What if a nuclear missillier refused to do so? Would that be treason?
Treason under U.S. law is aiding an enemy state.

>would a nuclear launch need a declaration of war

It takes approximately 40 minutes for an ICBM to reach its target. Submarine-based missiles would take less time than that. If the USSR were to launch a nuclear first strike, then retaliatory strikes would have to be authorized immediately, because ever wasted minute increases that probability that you won't get a chance to retaliate at all. There is no time in this scenario to assemble congress and have them vote on a formal declaration of war. Furthermore, the War Powers Act of 1973 gives the President the ability to initiate military action abroad for a period of 60 days without seeking congressional approval. If the action extends beyond 60 days, then congressional approval is required.

If a general or missile man refused an order to launch, they would certainly be court martialed. If they had a legitimate reason to refuse the order, that would be their defense at the trial. It would have to be a very good reason, the military takes chain of command seriously.

This general will be retired within a month or court martialed.

You cannot reject a direct military order from the commander in chief or you are in violation of multiple USMJ regulations.

Suffice to say, this general is fucked.

even Stanislav Petrov was court martialed. If the general is saying he wouldn't launch nuclear missiles purely because he disagrees with Trump's presidency, he should be immediately replaced

The US policy for authorization of WMDs are automatic if the soviets were to launch an ICBM at the US bases globally would retaliate without any orders, once any WMD the level to order a nuclear attack drops down to lower levels generally the commander of whatever base you're at so Trump's measures are rather limited the only way he gets to launch preemptively is if their was agreement with all the top dogs at the pentagon, then you would have to implement the launch which requires a minimum of 2 key turns to launch. In short it is a very complex long process to even launch and any actual illegal launch of any WMD could be rejected on just about any level of that process. Most of what the media portrays in this area is pure bullshit to scare morons.

This guy specifically referred to refusing an illegal order. Aren't US military personnel already required to refuse illegal orders? Seems to me that the guy is just saying that he would indeed do what he's supposed to do - which is refuse an illegal order. Why would he be court-martialed or retired?

This, 100%. The president not having the power to launch nukes whenever the fuck he wanted wasn't an option.

But it literally doesn't matter.
"Would you commit an illegal action if Trump told you to" isn't a discussion. We all know what he really meant, that if Trump told him to nuke someone he'd tell them "No."

>We all know what he really meant
Why are you assuming that he meant something other than what he said?

Cont.
Keep in mind that the general was responding to a question at a forum, it's not like he called a press conference suddenly to announce that he would refuse illegal orders.

>"Would you commit an illegal action if Trump told you to" isn't a discussion.
>isn't a discussion.

>if the soviets were to launch an ICBM
>Soviets
it would be 1962 and not 2017

Diff guy, I don't think any of the presidents powers were taken away after the collapse of the USSR though, were they?

All the procedures were written with the USSR in mind.

>Congress is actually considering endangering the security of the United States because they fell for the "We can't let this guy get the nuclear codes" meme

Oh look, a bunch of Sup Forumsniggers sperging out about a title written by some dumb liberal journalist rather than what the general actually said. Why the fuck am I not surprised?

The actual quote is:

"If it's illegal, guess what's going to happen. I'm going to say, 'Mr President, that's illegal.' And guess what he's going to do? He's going to say, 'What would be legal?' And we'll come up with options with a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that's the way it works."

Either way, this isn't fucking history. Modern politics belongs on your Sup Forumsnigger board.

>Congress is given the power to declare war in the Constitution
Silly user, the president can fight a war without congress by just not calling it war. I'm sure dropping one bomb would be fine.

Soviet members run the Russia.

don't be stupid. the message here is that "Drumpf wants to launch nukes illegally oy vey", it's just presented as a substrate for another, irrelevant statement. I hope this general gets fucked, though, because he acted as a propaganda agent of the hillarists.

This thread should have been deleted shit eating mod scum