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With weapons distributed amongst all USSR holdings this implies the US was willing to nuke everything from Poland to north Vietnam.

pjc50 6y ago
Yes, that was the stated objective.
simonh 6y ago
And the USSR was willing to nuke everything from Turkey to South Korea (going the long way).
rocqua 6y ago
Of course they would be. Nuking the USSR would involve resigning yourself to the murder of hundreds of millions. It also means accepting that the USSR will do whatever they can to retaliate with nukes. In that context, you are already so resigned at killing others over your own safety, that hitting a few other countries is a no-brainer.
XorNot 6y ago
The US in fact did have a serious problem with nuclear warplan targeting during the Cold War - there was essentially never a reason you could give to take a target off the list, so the plan for a good deal of time was essentially something like "hit every single conceivable target several times" (to account for failed bombs or losses en route). It was actually one of Dick Cheney's initiatives to create a process which would remove targets from the nuclear warplan's to get the number of weapons used down to a manageable number - and end the feedback of "oh no we've assigned all the weapons - we need more weapons in case there's more targets". EDIT: A critical element with nuclear warplan's is that you don't have one bomb per target - you generally have several bombs per target via different delivery systems with different priorities, because the key element of MAD is survivability - there has to always be a guarantee in your adversary's mind that they cannot destroy enough capability to create a winning scenario for them.
- simonh 6y ago
  There is even a case to be made that too much nuclear disarmament could create a less stable situation, because arsenals might deplete enough that an exchange might seem survivable.

pjc50 6y ago

Yes, that was the stated objective.

simonh 6y ago

And the USSR was willing to nuke everything from Turkey to South Korea (going the long way).

rocqua 6y ago

Of course they would be. Nuking the USSR would involve resigning yourself to the murder of hundreds of millions. It also means accepting that the USSR will do whatever they can to retaliate with nukes. In that context, you are already so resigned at killing others over your own safety, that hitting a few other countries is a no-brainer.

XorNot 6y ago

The US in fact did have a serious problem with nuclear warplan targeting during the Cold War - there was essentially never a reason you could give to take a target off the list, so the plan for a good deal of time was essentially something like "hit every single conceivable target several times" (to account for failed bombs or losses en route). It was actually one of Dick Cheney's initiatives to create a process which would remove targets from the nuclear warplan's to get the number of weapons used down to a manageable number - and end the feedback of "oh no we've assigned all the weapons - we need more weapons in case there's more targets". EDIT: A critical element with nuclear warplan's is that you don't have one bomb per target - you generally have several bombs per target via different delivery systems with different priorities, because the key element of MAD is survivability - there has to always be a guarantee in your adversary's mind that they cannot destroy enough capability to create a winning scenario for them.

simonh 6y ago
There is even a case to be made that too much nuclear disarmament could create a less stable situation, because arsenals might deplete enough that an exchange might seem survivable.