Excerpt:

If the North Koreans have also managed to solve the other significant challenges associated with a viable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) — which is not at all certain — then they will have achieved an embryonic operational capability.

We knew this was coming. Yet now that the rhetoric is running high, many are concerned that we are on the brink of nuclear war. Even though the possibility of such a war is remote, it has evoked understandable curiosity among the public regarding how the U.S. chain of command would function for ordering a nuclear strike and whether or not sufficient checks and balances exist to prevent a costly mistake.

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