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CommieGIR posted:Kennedy would've likely authorized a full strike. Not a first strike. A Responsive strike. Not the point, and no one said otherwise. If Putin stabbed and killed your whole family and then you pushed a button that randomly killed that many Russians, you could call it retaliatory all you want, but you'd still be a mass murderer.
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Oct 29, 2015 10:12
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Is there any legitimacy to the possibility of a nuke being smuggled in via shipping container and detonated in port with no state-actor taking responsibility? It doesn't necessarily have to be by ship, it could be trucked in, or by rail.
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Oct 29, 2015 10:46
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No. VitalSigns posted:In the scenario presented though: an aggressor nation launching a first strike, the deterrent effect of MAD has already obviously failed, so there's no reason to launch a retaliatory strike. For reference, this is the point I was trying to make. Nessus posted:Has anyone done any thinking on what happens if there is a very small use of nuclear weapons? For this scenario to occur you'd need to see a nuclear power, even a minor one, being invaded by conventional forces. Ignoring all the alliances and such that make this unlikely to occur without triggering a conventional third world war, I think the use of nukes on one's own soil as an extreme scorched earth policy would confuse the poo poo out of everybody; I doubt it would lead to a full exchange.
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Oct 29, 2015 11:11
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VitalSigns posted:Obviously for MAD doctrine to work you have to say you'd be willing to launch, but if you actually had the missiles coming at you I can't see an argument for going through with it and killing tens of millions of people.
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Oct 29, 2015 11:43
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Trent posted:Not the point, and no one said otherwise. Tying a Soviet Launch from Cuba to a full strike was what directly led to Kruschev's withdrawl. I'm kinda confused, the previous poster asked if Kennedy would be 'moral' enough not to launch a strike if the USSR launched from Cuba. Trent posted:Not the point, and no one said otherwise. "Its okay guys, we're going to be the bigger man and not stick to MAD because we'd hate to be a part of such a thing" If an attacking nation believed that the intended target nation would not respond properly per MAD, MAD would be broken. Unfortunately, that's the cost of MAD: You have to assume that you are going to make a very inhumane and immoral call because that's the only way to KEEP MAD working. Guys, you are discussing MAD as if its some fiendish plot: The point of MAD is to be so disastrous and futile that no one will follow through on that first strike. Its supposed to appear cruel, inhumane, and vile. You SHOULD be disgusted with MAD. That's the whole goddamn point. VitalSigns posted:In the scenario presented though: an aggressor nation launching a first strike, the deterrent effect of MAD has already obviously failed, so there's no reason to launch a retaliatory strike. Caveat: If it leaked out that a Nation tied to the stability of MAD was unwilling to launch a retaliatory strike: MAD would fail. A first strike would be all the more likely, even by a power NOT lead by an insane wacko. The only way to keep mad functioning is to assume everyone is playing. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Oct 29, 2015 |
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Oct 29, 2015 12:39
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Is anyone putting together a reading list? I've seen Command & Control mentioned before and it is a superb book but theres a couple of other books I can certainly recommend. Blundering Into Disaster - Robert S McNamara A very informative read, particularly as McNamara has first hand experience looking down the barrel of Nuclear War. He also makes a couple of interesting arguements about non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and the possibilty of a nuclear accident. As well as how the development of Nuclear Weapons lead to a set of weapons and war plans far from the initial intentions of the people who created them. The Secret State - Peter Hennessy A more British outlook on Nuclear Conflict. Includes information about defence plans and procedures as well as the infamous "Letter Of Last Resort" It also covers some of the more quirky solutions to an "Out-Of-The-Blue" attack such as the Prime Minister using a car phone from the AA to authorise a counter strike. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the physical, medical, and social effects of the atomic bombings - The Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Picking this one up may be difficult. I managed to get it from a Second Hand Bookshop in my local area. If you can, (and you can get past the fairly clinical writing style) you will not find a more in depth collection of facts. Created by a Japanese Committee after the occupation this report covers everything, from the size of the blast radius's, how both cities geography affected the detonation. More importantly however, there is a large focus on how the bombing affected the public. If theres an interest I may see if I can scan some of the report as it seems to cover almost every aspect of the bombings and I don't think theres a reference like it out there. I keep meaning to pick up Herman Kahn's "On Thermonuclear War" but the drat thing is super expensive.
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Oct 29, 2015 13:09
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CommieGIR posted:The only way to keep mad functioning is to assume everyone is playing.  Thanks for nothing, Matthew Broderick.
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Oct 29, 2015 13:27
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TACD posted:All this time I've been operating under the belief that the only winning move is not to play, and it turns out I had it exactly backwards all along It can be said both ways! Everyone is playing YET everyone doesn't play because the winning move is not to play.
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Oct 29, 2015 13:28
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blowfish posted:Too bad, you are on routine patrol in the middle of nowhere and can't get home before said home ceases to exist. So you might as well do a banzai charge the length of the Atlantic in a submarine that needs to run on diesel to get that far against the best ASW force on the planet bar none.
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Oct 29, 2015 13:34
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CommieGIR posted:Caveat: If it leaked out that a Nation tied to the stability of MAD was unwilling to launch a retaliatory strike: MAD would fail. A first strike would be all the more likely, even by a power NOT lead by an insane wacko. Nah, a strike in that situation would still be irrational. MAD doesn't require 100% certainty of retaliation to work, because the consequences if you're wrong are so devastating and the benefit if you're right (surviving unscathed and getting to occupy irradiated land, burned-out cities, ruined infrastructure, and probably-inaccessible-for-decades natural resources) are only slightly better than not attacking. You'd need to be very certain of your intelligence that the enemy leadership wouldn't retaliate, and confident they would stick to that decision in the face of rage and existential fear during the attack, and confident their successors don't have the will and capability to execute a second strike, and confident in their CnC to ensure that no one in what's left of their military is able and willing to launch an unauthorized strike with enough missiles to take out important cities, which is impossible because the whole point of nuclear-armed subs is to be able to launch without relying on codes transmitted from a capital that might have been destroyed in a surprise attack. That's an awfully big risk to take based on some dude overhearing Obama say he doesn't think he has it in him to order a counterattack in the minutes before he dies.
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Oct 29, 2015 14:06
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VitalSigns posted:That's an awfully big risk to take based on some dude overhearing Obama say he doesn't think he has it in him to order a counterattack in the minutes before he dies. That's the point. MAD woks because nobody wants to take that risk.
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Oct 29, 2015 14:12
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Assuming that leaders are going to be thinking logically or acting morally as cities are vaporized around them is naive. "Welp, we lost  . I guess we will just stand down our thousands of nukes and massive military industrial complex we have spent trillions of dollars on and wait for death.""But we can all rest easy knowing the history books will remember the other side as the bad guy. And that's what is really important."
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Oct 29, 2015 14:15
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It's hard to say really, with death staring you in the face, could you give the order to kill millions of people with no benefit to yourself? What's the point.
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Oct 29, 2015 14:23
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VitalSigns posted:It's hard to say really, with death staring you in the face, could you give the order to kill millions of people with no benefit to yourself? What's the point. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
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Oct 29, 2015 14:32
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VitalSigns posted:It's hard to say really, with death staring you in the face, could you give the order to kill millions of people with no benefit to yourself? What's the point. There is no benefit to nuclear war, one sided or otherwise.
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Oct 29, 2015 14:35
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VitalSigns posted:It's hard to say really, with death staring you in the face, could you give the order to kill millions of people with no benefit to yourself? What's the point. Not everyone shuts down when faced with danger or hard decisions. The simple idea that you eliminate the ability of an enemy to make a followup invasion against your survivors could be enough of a reason.
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Oct 29, 2015 14:49
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VitalSigns posted:It's hard to say really, with death staring you in the face, could you give the order to kill millions of people with no benefit to yourself? What's the point. Wasn't there a thing in the 80s that showed that even in the face of Armageddon lot of missile crews either hesitated or failed to launch?
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Oct 29, 2015 15:16
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KomradeX posted:Wasn't there a thing in the 80s that showed that even in the face of Armageddon lot of missile crews either hesitated or failed to launch? They wouldn't know. Missile crews, at least on on land ICBM sites, don't KNOW if the order they get is real or an exercise. They won't know until the missiles actually launch.
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Oct 29, 2015 15:19
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CommieGIR posted:They wouldn't know. Wait really? During a drill the crews undo all the safeties, turn the keys, enter the codes, arm the warheads, and do everything, and the only thing between us and nuclear armageddon is the system correctly rejecting the drill codes? That sounds...pretty loving dangerous.
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Oct 29, 2015 15:28
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VitalSigns posted:Wait really? During a drill the crews undo all the safeties, turn the keys, enter the codes, arm the warheads, and do everything, and the only thing between us and nuclear armageddon is the system correctly rejecting the drill codes? That sounds...pretty loving dangerous. Basically, yep.
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Oct 29, 2015 15:34
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Is any country ever going to really disarm from nukes in a world after the Crimea annexation? If the difference in treatment between North Korea and Iran wasn't deterrent enough, here's a country, Ukraine, which signed a treaty with several other countries to safeguard its sovereignty in exchange for relinquishing its nukes, only for one of the signatories, Russia, taking a huge poo poo over it decades later, with nobody else daring to challenge them, because guess who still has nukes?
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Oct 29, 2015 17:42
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Is any country ever going to really disarm from nukes in a world after the Crimea annexation? If the difference in treatment between North Korea and Iran wasn't deterrent enough, here's a country, Ukraine, which signed a treaty with several other countries to safeguard its sovereignty in exchange for relinquishing its nukes, only for one of the signatories, Russia, taking a huge poo poo over it decades later, with nobody else daring to challenge them, because guess who still has nukes? Its not really feasible. At least a unilateral limit is easier to enforce. A unilateral nuclear disarmament won't happen.
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Oct 29, 2015 17:53
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I don't really understand how a Nuclear disarmament would be beneficial for everyone. No one is going to use nukes unless the other side uses them which in itself stops either side from using them.Would Israel's second strike policy or "If we lose everyone loses policy" be considered nuclear terrorism? Because other than terrorist actions I have large doubts that a nuclear war would break out between nuclear countries because of the fact that there is no point. If we nuke you we have to hope you don't wipe you off the face of the map aswell I mean both sides have enough nukes to destroy the entire earth 10x over so it's not like a conventional war of punch each other until someone dies. It's a war of shoot each other and whoever bleeds to death the slowest wins.
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Oct 29, 2015 18:18
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VitalSigns posted:Wait really? During a drill the crews undo all the safeties, turn the keys, enter the codes, arm the warheads, and do everything, and the only thing between us and nuclear armageddon is the system correctly rejecting the drill codes? That sounds...pretty loving dangerous. The actual code to arm all the nukes was set to "00000000" for the longest time, out of spite for the civilian president demanding authority over the arming of nuclear weapons.
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Oct 29, 2015 18:24
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Trabisnikof posted:The actual code to arm all the nukes was set to "00000000" for the longest time, out of spite for the civilian president demanding authority over the arming of nuclear weapons. Not quite that spiteful: quote:For the Minuteman ICBM force, the US Air Force's Strategic Air Command worried that in times of need the codes would not be available, so they quietly decided to set them to 00000000. The missile launch checklists included an item confirming this combination until 1977.[ http://web.archive.org/web/20120511191600/http://www.cdi.org/blair/permissive-action-links.cfm
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Oct 29, 2015 18:27
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CommieGIR posted:That's the point. MAD woks because nobody wants to take that risk. You're really missing the core of the argument here. The purpose of MAD is to avoid a full scale nuclear war. The instant someone actually launches a first strike, MAD not only becomes meaningless, but it's instantly proven that the doctrine never worked in the first place. The problem with MAD is that it's only meaningful if you're never actually in a position where you need to retaliate. Retaliating to prevent a follow up invasion is a different thing altogether.
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Oct 29, 2015 22:19
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Yeah MAD only works until it doesn't anymore. And ask it takes is an incompetent or crazy person to throw it out of whack. Remember it took a TV movie to convince Reagan a nuclear war wasn't winnable
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Oct 29, 2015 22:23
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Paradoxish posted:You're really missing the core of the argument here. The purpose of MAD is to avoid a full scale nuclear war. The instant someone actually launches a first strike, MAD not only becomes meaningless, but it's instantly proven that the doctrine never worked in the first place. The problem with MAD is that it's only meaningful if you're never actually in a position where you need to retaliate. Cool. You've got 15 minutes or less to figure out how to tell everyone you are not launching a retaliatory strike because you want to be remembered as the moral guy. Yes, once someone actually launches, MAD is broken. I've gotten that. But this is all hypothetical anyways, because it hasn't happened. But, in reality, were a nuclear strike to be launched, more than likely a response strike would be automatically launched, because that is how it is drilled from the top down.
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Oct 29, 2015 22:24
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CommieGIR posted:Cool. You've got 15 minutes or less to figure out how to tell everyone you are not launching a retaliatory strike because you want to be remembered as the moral guy. It was actually called countervailing strategy and it was US policy towards the end of the Cold War: http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/09/24/a-countervailing-view/ Essentially, a massive retaliatory strike was always on the table and Very Important People believed it would ultimately be what would need to happen, but it was not the only option available and it was not official US doctrine to instantly and immediately launch everything in the event of a first strike. Policymakers realized that MAD was completely broken very early on. Edit- The thing to note is that it's enough to convince the other nation's leadership that nuclear war would lead to their own deaths and the destruction of their regime. You don't need to convince them that their entire nation will be turned to glass, because rational leaders aren't going to take a course of action that leads to their own deaths and the destruction of their State. Since MAD relies on rational leaders in the first place (there's no guarantee an irrational leader will be deterred by the actual apocalypse), there's no real benefit to a doctrine that implies complete and total destruction. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Oct 29, 2015 |
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Oct 29, 2015 22:28
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Paradoxish posted:It was actually called countervailing strategy and it was US policy towards the end of the Cold War: http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/09/24/a-countervailing-view/ quote:My January 1981 report made clear my view that deterrence of nuclear war was vital because the use of nuclear weapons was likely to escalate to mutual destruction, and victory would not be a possible outcome. All roads lead to MAD.
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Oct 29, 2015 23:34
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CommieGIR posted:Cool. You've got 15 minutes or less to figure out how to tell everyone you are not launching a retaliatory strike because you want to be remembered as the moral guy. CommieGIR posted:Yes, once someone actually launches, MAD is broken. I've gotten that. But this is all hypothetical anyways, because it hasn't happened. But, in reality, were a nuclear strike to be launched, more than likely a response strike would be automatically launched, because that is how it is drilled from the top down. Yeah, it hasn't been broken, but once it is, then MAD and proliferation become a horrible policy. Practical question: when does retaliation occur? Is a single nuke enough to start it? Are several? Is the intent of the power that launches a nuke something to be taken into account? What happens in case of an accidental launch? All these are questions you need an answer to in those 15 minutes.
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Oct 30, 2015 00:04
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Flowers For Algeria posted:Practical question: when does retaliation occur? Is a single nuke enough to start it? Are several? Is the intent of the power that launches a nuke something to be taken into account? What happens in case of an accidental launch? No, a single nuke would probably raise a lot of questions. Most of our current systems are looking for multiple launches and multiple inbounds, not a single flight. Not to mention, even with a MIRV payload, you'd get at most 3-5 strikes, not enough to do much more than seriously piss off the intended target superpower. Accidental launch? Someone would be rushing to the diplomatic channel to get a message out fast. Heads would roll, but I doubt that would trigger MAD. However, if there are multiple launches as part of the accidental launch, MAD would probably kick in. Really though, you are asking these questions as a concerned citizen, when in reality once it was apparent a strike was inbound, it would mostly be almost automatic. Within minutes, C&C would be rushed into the air, the DoD would switch to mobile C3 systems that have their own launch controls (Looking Glass, etc.) and the DoD would go into staging for a retaliatory launch. More than likely, the Executive department would authorize a launch without much second thought. Despite the overwhelming philosophical and moral questions, and despite how Hollywood portrays such a situation, its pretty automatic, and most of the scenarios are already thought of to ease the 'Yes/No' from the Executive Office. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 00:08
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An accidental launch of one missile, or even a handful of missiles, lies well within the capability of the ABM system to neutralise. At very least, you can be sure that they will fire every damned bullet they have at the problem...whether or not they will be successful is another story entirely.
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Oct 30, 2015 00:46
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Hypersonic ICBMs are the next arms race.
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Oct 30, 2015 00:51
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^ Sooner or later the space treaties will get thrown out. Space-based kinetic weapons could rapidly make NATO king of New York A#1 Single 'fluke' launches are why everyone with the cash on hand is trying to develop ABM - it's insurance if someone who has it 'accidentally' launches on you. You wouldn't want to be the aggressor to such an accident, would you? You can't be proportional with ABM. If only more work was being done for fission reactors that don't work with the weapons fuel cycle. You could see technology that can replace oil/coal for baseload demand with zero carbon and much less waste. You might even get electricity cheap enough to do industrial-scale desalinization. A militant secular approach is the only way to bring modernity and peace to not just the Middle East - but the whole world. Mc Do Well fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 00:54
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Flowers For Algeria posted:I am. I'd be in favor of the most severe enforcement, with international cooperation to oversee all the processes related to refining, enriching, and using fissile material. A huge breach of sovereignty to be sure, but I don't care about that. That's complete fantasy though, the countries with nuclear weapons would never consent to such "enforcement" and have the military might to ensure that no one could possibly impose it on them. I don't even understand why anyone would even entertain such an idea, it is so ludicrous that the United States, Russia, China, or India would let some NGO push them around on matters of national defense. They'd tell you to go to hell and you'd have no leverage over them. And you wouldn't even get your international cooperation because, between the four of them, those countries control, directly or indirectly, almost the entire world, and they would even work together because they know if you went after one of them, you would inevitably go after the others as well. You might not care about world powers' sovereignty, but they do and they're not going to give it up, and if you point at all the times they breached other countries' sovereignty, it won't matter because the big powers have the means to violate the sovereignty of anyone they choose...unless their target has nuclear weapons or is backed by a country that does. I certainly don't blame Iran for wanting the bomb, if I were prime minister of Iran I'd want all the loving bombs. VitalSigns posted:It's hard to say really, with death staring you in the face, could you give the order to kill millions of people with no benefit to yourself? What's the point. Spite. The people who give the order will not care one whit how history looks back on them, if any historians will be left afterwards. They're specifically trained not to be "the moral guy", they've been selected from the sort of people who are not even inclined to think that way. The people who get the keys to Armageddon are people who can be trusted to do what they're told. Just to emphasize how ridiculous Flowers for Algeria's idea is, a communist revolution in the United States is far more feasible than this notion that American deep state will acquiesce to an international nuclear disarmament program. At least the communist revolutionaries acknowledge that the deep state exists and can only be dislodged with force. Woolie Wool fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 02:00
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"Anyone who would have ordered a retaliatory strike after being on the receiving end of a nuclear attack is evil" is one of the ultimate examples in retrospective tut-tutting from people who live in a period where the idea nuclear war is just theory and not a literal possibility at almost any given time.
Fojar38 fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Oct 30, 2015 |
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Oct 30, 2015 02:34
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MrChips posted:An accidental launch of one missile, or even a handful of missiles, lies well within the capability of the ABM system to neutralise. At very least, you can be sure that they will fire every damned bullet they have at the problem...whether or not they will be successful is another story entirely. Nearly all ABM systems have been pretty fruitless and are still very fail prone.
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Oct 30, 2015 05:23
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I can think of a possible reason to counterstrike if you are on the receiving end of a huge first strike, which would be to weaken or demolish a country that would do such a heinous act. If Russia successfully nukes the United States (or vice versa) and there is no retaliating damage, you are essentially handing over world dominance of a far more explicit sort than presently exists to that country, which already has shown it is willing to execute a massive nuclear first strike. It would be a great evil, but it might stop a greater one.
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Oct 30, 2015 05:41
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I just take the opinion that the entire discussion of the morality of nuclear weapons operators is pointless because they are interchangeable minions who will never be held accountable. Unless you're St. Peter judging them at the pearly gates, it doesn't matter whether they're evil or not, they are what they are, they do what they do, and even if a revolution brought down the deep state, most of the minions in charge of pressing the button would just melt back into civilian society and never face justice.
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Oct 30, 2015 05:46
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