I guarantee that the people who do game theory about coups and nuclear war have thought about a willing or unwilling traitor in power. It’s one of the most confusing things about all this that they haven’t done anything to stop it.

My take is that whatever plans exist (and I agree they must) for this situation were designed to come into play only when a very specific set of criteria had been met, and that because any such plan would necessarily be very extreme, the designers of the plan codified that no matter how bad things got, it would require ALL those criteria to be met before it could be lawfully executed.

I believe we haven’t checked all the boxes yet.