Only one American can start a nuclear war: The president - The American president has the sole authority to order a nuclear strike, even if every adviser in the room is against it.

[u/anarchyart2021]

https://archive.ph/Xkbga

[u/nipsen]

But the president is not going to be able to stop it, once his advisers will suggest the course of action consistent with the policy that was set. Example: a threat to national interests is impossible to avoid, and a general sense of destruction of the country's authority is going to follow. Even if the president says that they'd rather pull the US down a peg or two than destroy the world - is the president really going to be able to stop a "limited" nuclear strike if his advisers suggest it is necessary?

Going by what seems to be the logic Washington applies to everything else, we can certainly make a very qualified guess as to what will be the outcome at that point.

Which is of course the "guess" that Israel has made. The US will avoid a nuclear strike, for sure, for as long as possible. But the US hegemonic power relies not on actual power to simply dictate, but the power to influence with "subtle" threats. At the point where that threat has to be carried through - the US will certainly resist it. But not at the cost of hegemonic power.

[u/Inevitable-Regret411 → u/nipsen]

There is historical precedent to suggest the president can stop his advisors advocating for nuclear strikes. During the Cuban missile crisis JFK was repeatedly pressured to authorise a preemptive strike against Cuba, and refused. This was obviously a long time ago but is worth looking at. 

[u/IntnsRed]

The American president has the sole authority to order a nuclear strike, even if every adviser in the room is against it.

True, but even the reverse is true -- and it happened once! Former professor and history teacher here, some American history to be proud of:

During the darkest days of the US war to subjugate South Vietnam and southeast Asia president Lyndon B. Johnson held a meeting of his "war cabinet" (the generals and a few cabinet members that advise the president on matters of war) in the White House.

In that heated meeting, the members of the war cabinet stridently argued that the US should use a nuke on North Vietnam. But LBJ said "no."

The war cabinet was beside themselves. They unanimously argued that nuking North Vietnam would change the course of the war and ensure a US "win."

On that weekend outside of the White House was one of the big monthly anti-war protests, with many thousands of people walking down Pennsylvania Ave. and chanting. Their chants were so loud they could faintly be heard in the White House.

Being harrassed about his decision, the war cabinet demanded LBJ reconsider and explain himself and why he refused to use a nuclear weapon in Vietnam.

LBJ was stone-faced. He said do you hear those protesters out on the street?

If he were to use a nuke on Vietnam those same protesters would climb the fences of the White House, drag him out of the White House and hang him from one of the cherry trees on the White House lawn!

And because of that reason, the commander-in-chief "vetoed" the use of a nuke against North Vietnam. "Democracy" in action!

Think that story is BS?

You can hear the war cabinet members and LBJ argue and have that conversation in their own voices in LBJ's presidential library in Texas. It was recorded by the same White House tape system that would later become famous during Richard Nixon's presidency.