According to an NBC Article, Presidents from Truman to H.W. Bush have been asked by military commanders to launch nuclear weapons at one point during their Presidencies. What spurred this advice from military commanders and why were they so quick to recommend it, knowing the almost certain outcome?

So I am not sure that Ciricione was saying that all Presidents from Truman to H.W. Bush were advised this. I suspect he was saying that Presidents have been advised this over various points in time — between Truman and H.W. Bush.

The big point here is that the "nuclear taboo" — the non-use of nuclear weapons after WWII — is a norm and not a "rule." It took time to get established. It gets challenged regularly. It didn't have to even happen — if Eisenhower had been President during the early Korean War, perhaps they would have been used? There is a lot of contingency there.

And I just want to note that you say "knowing the almost certain outcome" — but the outcomes are not as certain as you may think. E.g., there was no mutual assured destruction during the Korea War (none really with the USSR until the early 1960s; you do have a deterrence structure in the 1950s, but it is not mutually assured, and a lot of it is about the Soviets threatening Europe not the USA) or against non-nuclear powers (e.g. Vietnam). Yes, the USA was not going to nuke the USSR after the 1960s but there are lots of other possible places where nukes could have come into play that do not involve straightforward deterrence theory. And there are also many ways to use nukes — they are not just "big bombs dropped on cities," they can also be "small weapons used tactically" by the 1950s. That makes them seem less "special" to many military and even some political figures (Eisenhower and Nixon were both of the mind that tactical nukes were basically "non-special").

Some well-known and well-documented examples:

Truman and the Berlin Crisis. Advisors recommended to Truman that he launch a preemptive nuclear attack on the USSR. Truman declined, though he did authorize moving non-nuclear assemblies to the region.
Truman and the Korean War. Could have used nukes. Some generals wanted to use nukes. Plenty of popular discussion about the use of nukes. Moved non-nuclear assemblies to the region, but opted not to use nukes. By 1949 Truman was very dubious about the utility of nuclear weapons in military conflicts and also very aware of the fact that he required international support to wage a conflict of this nature.
Eisenhower and the Taiwan Strait crisis. Threatened to use nukes against China. Lots of talk at top levels of possibility of using nukes. Willingness by Eisenhower to potentially use them. Military advisors recommended them. Ultimately didn't need to use them. (This incident, as an aside, led to China starting their own nuclear program.)
Ex-President Eisenhower recommended to both Kennedy and Johnson that they use nukes in Laos and Vietnam. Lots of people talked about possibility of using them in Vietnam at different levels. Ultimately neither President was interested.
There was some discussion about possible use of nukes in the Nixon administration but ultimately a much lesser sort of pressure. Nixon himself was interested in nukes in Vietnam, and stated in 1985 that he considered using nukes four times during his administration (Vietnam, the Yom-Kippur War, the Sino-Soviet border disputes, and the 1971 India-Pakistan War... yeah, don't ask me what he intended to do with them, this is just what he told Time magazine). Much of the Nixon admin papers remains closed so it is hard to know more. What is interesting about Nixon is that he seems to have been the one interested in nukes, whilst his military people had internalized the idea that they were not actually all that useful.
I don't know of strong pressures from the top on Ford, Carter, or Reagan to use nukes in any of their conflicts. I suspect there were no truly serious ones. By this point the Soviets have true MAD capability, and the Chinese have the capability to do real damage (though not MAD), so any possible use would have to be in smaller conflicts. This does not mean that the world was not ever close to using weapons — we are speaking only on whether presidents were encouraged to use them by top advisors. The "taboo" was thoroughly in place at this point — if you were going to use nukes, you'd have to argue why nukes would be more useful in a given situation when they didn't appear to have been useful in previous ones. Again, this does not mean these were anti-nuclear presidents. Reagan did much to accelerate and encourage the nuclear arms race. But he didn't really contemplate striking first. (The Soviets were not always sure of that, though!)
Lastly, G.H.W. Bush — during the first Gulf War there was explicit talk about the possibility of using them in Iraq. Basically it was implied that if Saddam Hussein set the Kuwaiti oil fields on fire, or used chemical or biological weapons against US troops, we might use nukes in retaliation (in a low-yield, tactical way — not targeting cities). In fact, we now know that Saddam thought we would use nukes if they set the oil fields on fire... and set them on fire anyway. (Which is an interesting example of nuclear deterrence not working, in a sense.) But the reality of these pressures seems to have not been extreme; Bush was not interested in using tactical nukes.
Though we are well beyond our remit in terms of the 20-year rule, it might be worth noting that there was much talk of using low-yield "bunker-busting" nukes in the GWB administration, and considerable funds applied to the question. Anecdotally I have heard military sorts of people talk about the advantages such a weapon would have in targeting underground facilities like Fordow. Presumably these discussions also took place at higher levels. Cheney, at least in public statements, said they were not interested in using nuclear weapons in such cases.

Anyway — the authoritative source on this topic is Nina Tannewald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2007). It discusses all of the above examples mentioned, and several others.

Hello friends,

AskHistorians exists to connect people asking a question with those who can provide expert-level answers. This thread is starting to blow up on the site, and it's attracting users who ... aren't providing expert-level answers. In fact, we've already seen a large number of incorrect, speculative, or otherwise disallowed comments, including many asking about the deleted comments, which merely compounds the issue. As such, they were removed by the mod-team.

Please, before you attempt to answer the question, keep in mind our rules concerning in-depth and comprehensive responses. Answers that do not meet the standards we ask for will be removed, and posters who break the rules of the subreddit may be admonished.

It can often take time for a good answer to be written. We know that it can be frustrating to come in here from your front page and see only [removed] and this post, but we ask for your patience and understanding. If you are looking for some interesting content in the mean time, we hope you will check out our Twitter, the Sunday Digest, or the Monthly "Best Of" feature. It is very rare that a decent answer doesn't result in due time, so please do come check into the thread in a few hours. A Private Message to the Remind Me bot is a good way to remember.

Additionally, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with off topic conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread.

Thank you!