There is another scary side to this. Had a discussion with US generals about whether tweets counted as orders. Everyone said, of course not, until it was remarked that SecState Tillerson was fired by tweet. Room went silent.

Untested waters here…

— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) September 9, 2018

Oh, yeah?

On August 11, 1984, United States President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, was preparing to make his weekly Saturday radio address on National Public Radio. During a sound check before the address, Reagan made the following joke to the radio technicians:

My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

We begin bombing in five minutes (Wikipedia, more at the link)

The Soviet Union placed its army on alert over that.