Just to reiterate, because my old account got banned.

When the president gives the order to deploy nukes, that decision goes through a chain of command until it reaches the person who actually deploys it.

Each person in the chain of command has the power to say “No.” and just like that, none of the people under them in the chain of command can deploy nukes.

If we are talking about a nuke that deploys from a missile silo, there are two people at the end of that chain of command. They each have to turn a key at the same time to deploy, or the weapon is not sent. The key holes are far enough apart so that one person cannot deploy alone.

Each of the servicemen with those keys has a pistol in case the other one goes crazy and tries to do something horrible.

As you can see, the system is designed to make it unlikely that nukes actually get deployed, but not impossible. The government doesn't want it to be impossible, because making threats with nukes is much more useful than actually using them.

During the Cold War a test was conducted. This was at the height of the Cold War when everyone understood that nuclear annihilation was a possibility. Even under what are arguably ideal conditions in which the chances of deployment were maximized, the test showed that in a real situation, only 10% off the nukes would actually deploy. (Note: you didn't hear that number from me. I'm not supposed to know that.)

This is worth mentioning because we have a madman in the White House who is too stupid to understand all of the negative political, diplomatic, etc, consequences of deploying a nuke (I suspect this is why Putin has yet to use them).

It is also worth mentioning that a lot of people in the US military have been referring to the Iran war as “Operation Epstein Fury.”

If the command is given, I fully expect the actual deployment chances to be far below 10%.

I know this is a small comfort given that we have a brain-damaged shitgibbon in the White House, but I hope this information helps you sleep a little better.