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I heard this claim back during the Bush years, and recently I've been hearing it again. For example:

Donald Trump’s Ghostwriter Tells All - The New Yorker

I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.

Sometimes, a "button" is used metaphorically. Hillary Clinton refers to a button as well.

Is there some mechanism through which the President of the United States can deploy nuclear weapons without anyone else's approval?

Ten Bitcomb
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    According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football "the button" is a collection of documents and some sort of transmitter that allow the president to authorise a nuclear strike, but it must also be authorised by the secretary of defence. – GordonM Jul 19 '16 at 15:22
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    @GordonM The SecDef doesn't authorize, just *authenticate* -- his job in the process is to verify that the person who issued the order is in fact the Commander In Chief (either the Prez or the VP when the VP is Acting President), not to second-guess whether launching the nukes is the right decision. – Shadur Jul 20 '16 at 05:08
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    @Shadur right, and it doesn't have to be the Secretary of Defense personally, someone else can be deputized as an alternate. – DavePhD Jul 20 '16 at 11:40
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    @DavePHD Right, and their part is over when they say "Yes, these are the right codes; this person is authorized to give the order" – Shadur Jul 20 '16 at 11:42
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    The flippant response would be: Yes, but only at Will. Tom, Dick and Henry are off limits. – Michael Richardson Jul 20 '16 at 13:27
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    @Chimera why? The New Yorker is known for its meticulous fact-checking... – mb21 Jul 20 '16 at 18:51
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    @mb21 The point I'm making is that the New Yorker is so incredibly biased about what it publishes. – Chimera Jul 20 '16 at 20:47
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    @Shadur Isn't part of authenticating that the President is who he says he is _also_ certifying he's at least of sound mind when he gives the order? I'm reminded of Tom Clancy's _Sum of All Fears_... – abluejelly Jul 20 '16 at 21:44
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    @abluejelly It's entirely too easy to argue that *anyone* ordering a nuclear strike is effectively ordering World War 3, and "sound mind" no longer applies. – Shadur Jul 20 '16 at 22:37
  • @Shadur The majority of the nukes everyone is worried about are almost completely useless outside of enforcing the (ever-apt) concept of MAD. The scale of the collateral compared to the effects that can be gained via conventional weapons just makes them infeasible otherwise. The only real "worries" for a non-insanity call would be either when escalating to nukes is the only choice (unlikely in the current global landscape) or in a retaliatory MAD strike on another nation's behalf- which would likely be scalpel-like at the nuclear capabilities, followed by a full invasion (assuming NK / Iran). – abluejelly Jul 20 '16 at 23:00
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    @abluejelly That's hilarious. You just said "Scalpel-like" in the same sentence as "Nuclear strike". – Shadur Jul 21 '16 at 08:45
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    Obviously it can not but a simple 'button'. Where would the rocket go ? – Kii Jul 21 '16 at 09:39
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    Minor nitpick - you *launch* missiles, you *drop* bombs. You can't *launch a bomb* - they don't do that. – J... Jul 21 '16 at 10:03
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    @Chimera it's a quote from the article, not a quote in the article. And the article is not ridiculous. – Carsten S Jul 21 '16 at 10:21
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    @Shadur Tactical vs Strategic nukes. Strategic is the world-ending high-yield world-ending tier that everyone is worried about. Tactical, the fear is escalation to strategic, not the actual destructive force. Hell, the B61 is a variable-yield US gravity bomb that can go down to a 300 ton yield (not mega- or even kilo-). You should read up on low-yield and variable-yield nukes, as well as the (mostly discontinued) neutron bombs. You can use a nuke like a scalpel if you use the right kind of nuke. – abluejelly Jul 21 '16 at 20:06
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    It should be clear that the President can't "deploy" much of anything without cooperation of others even if it's only about following orders or not. However, a President can almost certainly provoke circumstances resulting in nuclear weapons deployment. E.g., Pakistan is a nuclear power and might be provoked to disseminate weapons. – user2338816 Jul 22 '16 at 14:37
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    Note that the command system is designed so that lower levels of the command chain have no way *and are not allowed to ask* if the president is **sane**. Asking the question gets you fired. – Martin Schröder Aug 26 '17 at 11:42
  • @MartinSchröder I am not 100% convinced of that. The Secretary of Defense is supposed to authenticate the President. This could involve a phone call to the Vice President to check on whether Article 25 has been invoked. The mere act of checking could initiate an invocation. Regardless, I would doubt that the Secretary of Defense would care much about getting fired in the context of a nuclear war. – emory Jun 04 '18 at 23:27

2 Answers2

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According to retired Lt. General Mark Hertling, who personally participated in such drills, and wrote Nuclear Codes: The President's Awesome Power

That bag -- carried by the military aide -- has been within feet of the commander in chief ever since for any situation where the president believes the use of nuclear weapons is warranted. If that is the case, he is able to order the military aide to open the briefcase and issue an alert to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While that is occurring, the president reviews options from the nuclear triad -- submarine launched missiles, aircraft with atomic weapons, or land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS) -- and then decides on a course of action.

The aide then connects the president with the National Military Command Center (NMCC) -- in the Pentagon or an airborne command and control element -- and positively identifies himself with a special code issued on a plastic card. Most presidents have kept that card -- called the "biscuit" -- in their possession at all times.

Should this happen, the code on the president's card would be confirmed by either the secretary of defense, or the watch officer (a general or admiral on duty) at the NMCC, and the president could then order a strike. The president always has the authority to order an attack, with his options ranging from the launch of one missile to extensive, massive strikes from one or several elements of the triad: bombers, submarines, missiles.

So, according to General Hertling, while it must be confirmed by a general, admiral or the secretary of defense that it is really the president giving the order, "The president always has the authority to order an attack".

For more information see Nuclear Command and Control in NATO: Nuclear Weapons Operations and the Strategy of Flexible Response. I'll only quote a portion:

Although the President had the sole authority and responsibility to order the use of nuclear weapons the control of nuclear weapons operations was exercised by the NCA [National Command Authorities] which, according to the 1971 Department of Defense Directive 5100.30, consisted only of 'the President and the Secretary of Defense or their duly deputised alternates or successors'. The NCA could also be widened to include the most senior US military officer the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS). The sharing of operational control – if not authority – enabled even this most senior level of decision-making to meet the 'two-person' rule which governs all US nuclear weapons activities. This rule stated that all decisions, procedures or processes involving nuclear weapons had to be carried out by at least two individuals, and was intended as a hedge against unauthorised or irrational action by anyone in the command chain.

See also Department of Defense directive NUMBER 3150.02:

The President, as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, is the sole authority for the employment of U.S. nuclear weapons.

In Conclusion, physically the president alone can not use nuclear weapons; the involvement of other people is absolutely required. However, if the chain of command is followed, policy is that the president is the sole authority for use of nuclear weapons.

For historical comparison, according to the New World Encylopedia:

The Washington Post [reference 21] reported that many Europeans and leaders around the world thought that Reagan was "a cowboy" and "scary." Carter's campaign implied that Reagan was "a trigger happy cowboy."[22] The Iranian hostage-takers in particular reported being unsure of what Reagan would do.[23] Iranian uncertainty about Reagan's plans may have been the main motivation behind the timing of the release of the hostages

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DavePhD
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    IMO, this answer would benefit from a bold **yes** somewhere as the one-word answer to the question in the title. – Oliphaunt Jul 19 '16 at 21:06
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/42908/discussion-on-answer-by-davephd-does-the-president-of-the-united-states-have-the). – Sklivvz Jul 23 '16 at 10:44
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    The "sole authority to deploy" is not the same as the "ability to deploy at will". It does not necessarily exclude others from have the authority to rescind such an order, nor from not acting on such an order. – Vince O'Sullivan Jul 24 '16 at 13:19
  • @vince that has already been discussed in the chat linked to one comment above yours –  Jul 25 '16 at 01:17
  • While this is certainly technically true, it begs the question whether the president _really_ has the authority to pull this one off. Say Trump got into office and ordered the NMCC to nuke North Korea on his first day in office... I'd say -- hope -- that the officer in charge would simply straight out refuse to comply. Compare e.g. the case of Lt Col Stanislav Petrov, who possibly saved us all from nuclear extinction in 1983 by defying his orders (http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-cold-war-close-calls) – fgysin Aug 10 '16 at 15:53
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    @fgysin He didn't defy orders to fire nukes. He judged an incoming attack as a false alarm and chose not to report it. – Opt Aug 27 '16 at 05:18
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    @Opt Yes, and by *choosing not to report it* he defied his orders which were very clear in this regard. It wasn't really his call to make (officially), but he chose not to report it because he feared what might become of his report further up the line of command... – fgysin Aug 29 '16 at 07:22
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    [*When North Korea shot down a US spy plane in April 1969, an enraged Nixon allegedly ordered a tactical nuclear strike and told the joint chiefs to recommend targets. According to the historian Anthony Summers, citing the CIA's top Vietnam specialist at the time, George Carver, Henry Kissinger spoke to military commanders on the phone and agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning.*](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38651623) – gerrit Jan 19 '17 at 14:05
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    @gerrit If this is true it is undoubtedly an illegal move by Kissinger to suborn the authority of an acting president. – kleineg Oct 05 '17 at 15:08
  • @kleineg Interestingly, in a Dutch magazine, I read exactly the same claim yesterday, except it was about North-Vietnam, not North-Korea. – gerrit Oct 05 '17 at 15:29
  • Essay on this question in Politico magazine: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/11/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-richard-nixon-215478 Discusses the case of Richard Nixon, who was also casual about megadeaths and encouraged Russia to believe he might nuke Hanoi in a fit of temper. – Paul Johnson Dec 29 '18 at 11:41
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Essentially, yes.

The decision is technically solely up to the President. Of course, he does not personally perform the launch; there are other people in the chain of command following his orders.

The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) studied the process in depth. (They were searching for possible cyber-attack vulnerabilities.)

The most portable way the president has to command nuclear strikes is the "nuclear football".

It is a specially outfitted briefcase which can be used by the President to authorize a nuclear strike when away from fixed command centres. The President is accompanied by an aide carrying the nuclear football at all times...

The attack options provided in the football include single ICBM launches and large scale predetermined scenarios as part of the Single Integrated Operational Plan. Before initiating a launch the President must be positively identified using a special code on a plastic card, sometimes referred to as ‘the gold codes’ or ‘the biscuit’. The order must also be approved by a second member of the government as per the two-man rule (Pike 2006).

This two-man rule is officially described in Air Force Instruction 91-104. Basically, two people have to validate any nuclear order. Again, from the ICNND,

The US uses the two-man rule to achieve a higher level of security in nuclear affairs. Under this rule two authorized personnel must be present and in agreement during critical stages of nuclear command and control. The President must jointly issue a launch order with the Secretary of Defense; Minuteman missile operators must agree that the launch order is valid; and on a submarine, both the commanding officer and executive officer must agree that the order to launch is valid.

However, the two-man rule from AFI 91-104 is only meant to confirm the command is valid; it's not meant to decide whether or not a command should be issued. Ultimately, that decision rests solely upon the President of the United States (or his successor). The Secretary of Defense (or his successor) simply affirms that the command was indeed issued, and done so by the appropriate person.

For succession purposes, the codes are actually distributed to at least the President and Vice President, though the VP's commands would only be listened to if the President were unreachable.

Why Clinton's Losing the Nuclear Biscuit Was Really, Really Bad

A nuclear launch order can only be commanded by the President, or his successor in case of death or removal from office.

In effect, without Clinton's "biscuit," as the personal identifier is called, the President would not have been able to initiate a launch order or confirm a launch order executed by someone else...

So what happens if the President doesn't have his identifier?

The commander in chief of NORAD resorts to the next person the NCA list, the Vice President.

...

This shouldn't be very surprising; the military has always worked with a chain of command, with a single person ultimately responsible at each level. There's no democracy, no voting.

Naturally, it possible someone could question the order, but the further from the President, the less information they would have.

It might seem like an insane process, but remember that in a real nuclear event, every second would count as the US and its enemy try to remove as much of each other's nuclear capacity as possible.

So, terrifying...but that's nukes.

EDIT 1: To use an analogy from the comments to explain the role of the SecDef:

it's like a judge performing a marriage. They don't decide who marries whom when; they simply confirm that the decision is indeed being made by the appropriate parties

The Security of Defense (technically) doesn't second guess the wisdom of the decision. And even if he did, it would be potentially useless check as the President appoints and dismisses the Secretary of Defense (and changes the order of succession at will).

This answer describes the official process. As with any protocol that involves a human, it's conceivable that it could be broken, but that speculative and currently without precedent. I believe the question assumes adherence to policy, otherwise the answer is false from outset.

EDIT 2: A recent (Dec 2018) opinion article from The Washington Post agrees with this assessment.

The secretary of defense has no legal position in the nuclear chain of command, and any attempts by a secretary of defense to prevent the president from exercising the authority to use nuclear weapons would be undemocratic and illegal. With or without Mattis, the president has unchecked and complete authority to launch nuclear weapons based on his sole discretion.

EDIT 3: Expert Franklin Miller has said the same: that the President has essentially unilateral power to launch nukes.

The only authoritative way to change that is to change his status as President: removal by Congress, or the VP and a majority of the Cabinet declaring him disabled/unfit (25th Amendment).

Paul Draper
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    If a President were to suddenly decide to order a nuclear strike, I suspect a few high-level people would take a few seconds to think, "Do we comply or do we declare him loony?" – WGroleau Jul 19 '16 at 21:03
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    @WGroleau Yeah, in practice I would think a totally nutty nuclear strike order would cause the other person to refuse to confirm it, whether or not they were supposed to. – Loren Pechtel Jul 19 '16 at 21:31
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    @WGroleau, I think so as well. The guy in the submarine won't do that, because he lacks the appropriate intel. But hopefully the Secretary has enough context :) It can matter in grey areas though. No one's going to bomb Canada. But if there's something like a reported launch of a N. Korea nuke towards a U.S. ally, that could perhaps go either way. – Paul Draper Jul 19 '16 at 21:53
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    @WGroleau, Maj. Harold Hering posed such uncomfortable question. [He was expelled](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.html). – Ángel Jul 19 '16 at 22:48
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    @Ángel So dit [Stanislav Petrov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov). And we all thank our respective deities or the vagaries of chance and the inherent good in human nature that he did. – Shadur Jul 20 '16 at 04:59
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    This and other answers, are so confusing. How is it "Yes", when the need a two-man approval? – BЈовић Jul 20 '16 at 11:34
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    @BЈовић, it's like a judge performing a marriage. They don't decide who marries whom when; they simply confirm that the decision is being indeed made by the couple. – Paul Draper Jul 20 '16 at 11:57
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    But in that case, the answer is NO. Since the POTUS can't just give the codes to launch nukes. If the bride says NO, then they are not married. – BЈовић Jul 20 '16 at 12:58
  • @BЈовић: The Prez gives the order, the Veep confirms that the order came from the Prez. Given that the Prez appoints the Veep (and can replace him anytime), that effectively means that if the Prez says "shoot", they shoot.. – Oscar Bravo Jul 20 '16 at 13:28
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    @OwenBoyle The SecDef confirms the order, not the VP. Also, the President can't replace the VP at will. The VP would have to resign, die, become incapacitated, or be impeached and removed by Congress in order to be replaced. And, even then, the Senate would have to confirm the replacement. The Senate would also have to approve a replacement SecDef. – reirab Jul 20 '16 at 14:36
  • @Owen, that's why he's called commander in chief, because he commands the military. – Paul Draper Jul 20 '16 at 15:13
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    -1 Your sources say **Essentially, No.** If there are hedges against a rogue president, which is what the two man rule is for, two people besides the president need to agree, then no, the president can't simply launch on a whim. – Shane Jul 20 '16 at 20:25
  • @Ángel Thanks for that link, absolutely fascinating. – Shane Jul 20 '16 at 20:43
  • @Shane, officially, it is the president who makes the decision. Realistically, that probably would happen. But now I'm speculating. – Paul Draper Jul 21 '16 at 04:05
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    Good research, but I somewhat disagree with your interpretation of the word "valid". I feel pretty safe in believing that if President Obama (or any president) were to call the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter (or any SecDef) into the Oval Office tomorrow and say "You know what? Vladimir Putin's an ***hole. Let's nuke Russia." the Secretary would not concur with those orders and affirm that they were valid. Moreover, it doesn't seem like there's any way for the President to "challenge" the Secretary's grounds for saying that; if SecDef says the order isn't valid, it doesn't get executed. – mostlyinformed Jul 21 '16 at 07:12
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    @reirab: Thanks for the precision... The point is that the SD is appointed by the Prez. The hedge relies on the SD maintaining a detached, independent view. This may be compromised if the Prez appoints a particularly weak individual whom he can bend to his will. This is not "control by committee" and the risk of a manipulative Prez is very real. – Oscar Bravo Jul 21 '16 at 08:26
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    @BЈовић There is no "bride" in this analogy, only a witness. The Sec of Defence cannot simply say "no" or "I disagree", they can only say "this order is invalid" or "you are not the President". Obviously, there is much scope for authority being exceeded on pragmatic grounds, but in theory, if the President says "launch", and is authenticated as the current commander-in-chief, nobody has authority to countermand that order. – IMSoP Jul 21 '16 at 16:30
  • @IMSoP Perhaps not but if the SecDef refuses to comply anyway, is the President authorized to bypass him in the chain of command? Is the next person in the chain below the SecDef allowed to directly take the order from the President? My guess is no. It sounds like if the SecDef decides not to cooperate then the nukes don't get launched regardless if he was right or not and regardless if he is criminally punished or not. – maple_shaft Jul 22 '16 at 17:06
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    @maple_shaft, yes, the President can **unilaterally** remove the Secretary of Defense from his cabinet. (Congress tried to restrict this ability but the Tenure of Office Act was ruled unconstitutional.) And while appointing an bonafide SecDef requires consent of Congress, the succession of who is the acting SecDef is entirely up to the President. (In fact, Obama changed it a few years ago.) – Paul Draper Jul 22 '16 at 19:39
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    May I suggest changing the "his"s to "their" or some other gender-neutral pronoun? – E. P. Jul 23 '16 at 20:41
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    @E.P. ugh, looks like someone did it for you....and **changed quotes from original sources.** Blagh... "He" as third-person is an established pattern in the English language. – Paul Draper Jul 03 '17 at 04:30
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    @PaulDraper Baking sexist assumptions into the language is also an established pattern in the English language, but that does not mean that we should continue doing it, and in many cases it is sexist to do so. I note that you didn't just roll back edits to the quotations, so since you seem to be blaming me for other people's actions, I'll go on and make it explicit that I think outright appropriation via gendered pronouns when a gender-neutral alternative is available, as you are doing, is a sexist attitude. Not that I would expect any argument to change your mind on that, though. – E. P. Jul 03 '17 at 08:03
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    @E.P., I of course don't blame you for someone else's edits. I do think you're overly picky. English is of the least sexist languages in existance. In many languages every single thing is a assigned a sex, e.g. dogs are male and cats are female. – Paul Draper Jul 03 '17 at 15:34
  • @PaulDraper Nope, language isn't sexist, language *use* is sexist, like the one you go out of your way to use in the rollback to this answer. That's plenty of evidence that you won't listen to any further arguments beyond those already listed so I won't try. – E. P. Jul 03 '17 at 16:19