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The real problem is that if you hear a big boom and your communications fail, how do you know the Russians haven't launched at the US mainland? You're a comman

The real problem is that if you hear a big boom and your communications fail, how do you know the Russians haven't launched at the US mainland? You're a commander of a small airfield in the Pacific and the last you heard from the US was that tactical nukes had been used in Europe. Now, communications are down. You have a bunch of planes ready to go, and if there's missiles or planes headed your way, you'll die pointlessly if you don't put them in the air. You have a letter from the President authorizing you to launch in this situation. Now what?

vbezhenar 7y ago
Stanislav Petrov was in a similar conditions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
dragontamer 7y ago
> You're a commander of a small airfield in the Pacific and the last you heard from the US was that tactical nukes had been used in Europe If you hear the boom and you're not dead... then it was probably tactical. Strategic nukes aren't launched one-at-a-time. They'll be launched thousands-at-a-time. You're simply dead, you'll be pulvarized by multiple ICBMs before you even know what hit you. The plan is to launch your strategic nukes in retaliation BEFORE they hit their targets. Alternatively, you have enough secret nuclear submarines to launch your strategic counter-attack after-the-fact (even if the mainland is destroyed). ----------- The launching of any ICBM would probably trigger the end of the world as we know it. ICBMs fly at such speeds that they cannot be reliably stopped: they're basically spacecraft. Once launched, their target is effectively going to be destroyed within 10-minutes or so. The real risk of strategic weapons is misidentifying a flock of birds as an ICBM (or other such technical glitch).
- roywiggins 7y ago
  I was garbling a scenario from Ellsberg's book. I believe the time period in question was the 50s-early 60s (the same period where these tactical nukes were popular) when MAD was being enforced by bombers, not ICBMs. According to Ellsberg, there was a period where there was no actual plan to defend Europe by other means than massive nuclear retaliation. https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704 https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-...

vbezhenar 7y ago

Stanislav Petrov was in a similar conditions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

dragontamer 7y ago

> You're a commander of a small airfield in the Pacific and the last you heard from the US was that tactical nukes had been used in Europe If you hear the boom and you're not dead... then it was probably tactical. Strategic nukes aren't launched one-at-a-time. They'll be launched thousands-at-a-time. You're simply dead, you'll be pulvarized by multiple ICBMs before you even know what hit you. The plan is to launch your strategic nukes in retaliation BEFORE they hit their targets. Alternatively, you have enough secret nuclear submarines to launch your strategic counter-attack after-the-fact (even if the mainland is destroyed). ----------- The launching of any ICBM would probably trigger the end of the world as we know it. ICBMs fly at such speeds that they cannot be reliably stopped: they're basically spacecraft. Once launched, their target is effectively going to be destroyed within 10-minutes or so. The real risk of strategic weapons is misidentifying a flock of birds as an ICBM (or other such technical glitch).

roywiggins 7y ago
I was garbling a scenario from Ellsberg's book. I believe the time period in question was the 50s-early 60s (the same period where these tactical nukes were popular) when MAD was being enforced by bombers, not ICBMs. According to Ellsberg, there was a period where there was no actual plan to defend Europe by other means than massive nuclear retaliation. https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704 https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-...