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Wow, that's really interesting. I think that Britain is firmly in the wrong on this one. That places a lot of trust in a lot of individuals hands, which I don't
by MrSartorial 17y ago
Wow, that's really interesting. I think that Britain is firmly in the wrong on this one. That places a lot of trust in a lot of individuals hands, which I don't necessarily have a problem with because of a number of psychological factors related to their employment in the army, but that doesn't discount someone infiltrating the systems and activating the missiles.
- jules 17y agoI imagine that someone can go crazy when living in a sub for a long period of time.
- SapphireSun 17y agoEspecially if they do not have a friendly port to return to anymore.
- cstross 17y agoRubbish. The US Navy's SSBNs work the same way. A second strike deterrent force by definition has to have decentralized launch authority. The backstop is that no single officer can launch the missiles, it takes joint action -- and the officers are carefully screened before being put in that position. One rogue sub officer? Maybe. Enough of them to overpower the rest of the crew and carry out an unauthorized launch? Very unlikely, and begs the question of why.