In the current atmosphere of uncertainty especially as US allies try to gauge whether President Trump would resort to nuclear force if provoked by North Korea, good judgement appears to be prevailing at last.
It is good news that Congress has been told that the US military would refuse to fire nuclear weapons if it judged the order to be illegal. The president's power to launch a strike was thus being questioned by Capitol Hill for the first time in more than 40 years.
Robert Kehler, a former commander of US Strategic Command, which oversees America's nuclear weapons, told the Senate foreign relations committee that he would have refused to carry out a nuclear first strike had he judged that the order did not follow the laws of war, which call for an attack to be proportionate and necessary.
Bob Corker, the chairman of the committee, warned last month that Mr Trump's belligerent rhetoric threatened to put the US ''on the path to World War 3.''
However, after hearing expert testimony, Mr Corker conceded that changes to launch procedures were unlikely in the short term.
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