Talk:Gold Codes

message: some source stuff, in case someone wants to cite it all up (and in case anyone is dissuaded by the whole unsourced tag).  All Google Books links.
*How to Be President by Stephen P. Williams p44
*Information Please Almanac (1987) p295
*Nuclear deterrence, morality, and realism by John Finnis, Joseph M. Boyle, and Germain Gabriel Grisez p54
Have fun.  --an odd name 12:52, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible sources and such

message: This article says "The satchel also includes a secure satellite phone" although Nuclear football says it is unknown if it has communications or what type they are, although an antenna has been seen. Pnorman (talk) 07:15, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Football

message: not enough fact.Typhoon2885 (talk) 13:02, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  too much personal opinion here 

message: In a 30 March 2012 public interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, former United States National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski explained that after learning of what was later a false alarm regarding a potential nuclear attack, he had three minutes to determine if he should inform the President of the United States. The President would then have a time period of four minutes to decide what to do next. Foreign Policy magazine reported on this in a 5 August 2016 article: "he recalled having only three minutes to decide whether or not to inform the president, after which the president had four minutes to decide whether or not to retaliate."
Added the above to the article. 69.50.70.9 (talk) 00:13, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  2012 public interview with United States National Security Advisor 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I see it's in the first reference, but not any others as far as I can see.  Is there perhaps a more common name for this set of codes? Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where does the title "Gold Codes" come from? 

message: Under the Law of War, if the president ordered the “illegal” use of nukes, such as an unprovoked act of aggression or an attack on a whim where no diplomatic efforts to mitigate a crisis have been made, the military is required to refuse such an order. Such orders are clearly illegal. 
Members of the military have already gone on record stating that any illegal order from the President would be refused:
Retired General Mike Hayden created a stir with his recent appearance on the HBO show, “Real Time with Bill Maher.” In the interview, Hayden told Maher that if Donald Trump wins the election and then attempts to fulfill some of his more outlandish campaign promises, the new Republican president would be blocked by the senior military. Actually, what Hayden said was, “the American armed forces would refuse to act” and that the senior military will be correct in doing so because, as he put it, military commanders, “are required not to follow an unlawful order.”
[3]
And more validation…
A former senior U.S. military officer said an order from the president to launch nuclear weapons can be refused if that command is determined to be illegal.
Retired Air Force Gen. Robert Kehler told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday the U.S. armed forces are obligated to follow legal orders, not illegal ones.
Kehler served as commander of Strategic Command from January 2011 to November 2013. He said the legal principles of military necessity, distinction and proportionality also apply to decisions about the use of nuclear weapons.
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., asked Kehler if that meant the top officer at Strategic Command can deny the president’s order if it fails those tests.
Kehler said, “Yes.”
[4]
Military.com reported:
The top commander of U.S. nuclear forces says he would push back if President Donald Trump asked him to carry out an order he deemed “illegal.”
Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten told the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday that he and Trump have discussed what would happen if the president ordered a nuclear strike that the general believed to be unlawful under international law.
“I think some people think we’re stupid. We’re not stupid people,” Hyten said. “We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility, how do you not think about it?”
Hyten would be in charge of U.S. nuclear forces in a war. If Trump decided to launch a nuclear attack, Hyten would provide him with strike options, and the president would make his decision.
“The way the process works, it’s simple,” said Hyten. “I provide advice to the president, he’ll tell me what to do, and if it’s illegal, guess what is 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?'” Hyten said he and Trump would work to find another course of action.
Unlike troops in authoritarian regimes, our military is obliged to disregard illegal orders or face the consequences.
[6]
 
Legal scenarios vs illegal scenarios. The difference is obvious and the results are far different.
Peter Feaver, expert witness called in congressional hearing on this subject…
Well, there are two scenarios that come to mind. One is that the president is woken up in the middle of the night and told he has only 30 minutes or less to make a decision because we are under attack or about to be attacked, and of course that means hundreds if not thousands of people in the national security complex who've been monitoring world events and passed through various protocols have concluded this is what's happening, and we need an answer from the president. In that context, the system is designed to be able to carry out an order in that narrow time span, and he alone would have the legal authority to give that order if he's still alive.
The other scenario is that the president wakes the military up in the middle of the night and says, "Hey, I want to do a nuclear strike," and in that setting, he would raise a lot of alarms throughout the chain of command. People would be saying, "Well, what is this? Why are we doing this?" It would require a lot more people to say, "Yes. This is the right decision."
The military is trained to disobey illegal orders, so context matters. If they've woken up the president because they believe they're under attack, there's a presumption of legality if the president orders a strike. But if the president wakes them up in the middle of the night and orders a nuclear strike with no context, no crisis, no alert, then there's not a presumption that that order is legal. They would raise serious questions.
[8] Uswine99 (talk) 17:08, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: i wrote extensively on this subject on quora .... all my references are here is you would like the details https://www.quora.com/Would-the-military-really-have-to-obey-a-Trump-command-to-fire-a-nuclear-weapon Uswine99 (talk) 17:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuclear-defense policy expert Franklin Miller states that the president has almost single authority to initiate a nuclear attack and the secretary of defense is required to verify the order, he or she cannot legally veto it.