In Crimson Tide why was XO Hunter correct in his decision not to launch nuclear weapons?

He was not correct, but then that's why they have redundency and character profiling for jobs likes his. I wonder how many fail the profiling. In movies like the Day After, Fail Safe and By Dawn's Early Light, we see different dooms day scenarios where military personnel act as robots or begin to think of their actions. It's interesting to read stories of bombadier pilots during WWII and how they rationalize the killing of "unseen" faces on the ground.

If you're a thinker like XO Hunter, then you problably would not've made it to a nuclear submarine, at least that's my opinion. Did you know the E-4s have begun flying 24 hrs again, they had stopped after the end of the Cold War, just thought i'd throw that in.