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Let us imagine you are a nuclear power A. You do not have ABMs. Nuclear power B does, and you believe they are effective (key point). Logic dictates that you wi
by aerostable_slug 4y ago
Let us imagine you are a nuclear power A. You do not have ABMs. Nuclear power B does, and you believe they are effective (key point). Logic dictates that you will end up the guaranteed loser on an exchange where A fires first with ABMs backstopping their second strike. Now, you might not lose when B fires first, so game theory says you fire first.
Whoosh missiles fly and everyone loses.
- nickff 4y agoThe first strike is always advantaged, in that it may destroy some fraction of the opponent's arsenal; I'm not sure how much ABMs change that.
- aerostable_slug 4y agoThe advantage is with the clean-up. First strike takes out some amount of launch vehicles. ABMs have a prayer against x-y warheads, where y is the attrition from the first strike (which is nonzero unless you're dealing with a launch-on-warning opponent, which neither the US nor Russia nor China is). Few powers are really ready to perform launch-on-warning. The consequences for a false positive are too dire to consider, and we all also have a survivable second strike capability (with the possible exception of China, whose submarines are boiled crap run with an Evinrude outboard). And in my estimation, even China would ride out the first wave.