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The mere existence of these plans and weapons have successfully deterred a nuclear war — so, while the execution of the plan would have been horrific indeed, th
by golergka 3y ago
The mere existence of these plans and weapons have successfully deterred a nuclear war — so, while the execution of the plan would have been horrific indeed, the plan itself was something completely opposite.
It's sad that people often evaluate strategic military matters without applying even the minimal level of game theory.
- WeylandYutani 3y agoMAD prevented war but trying to circumvent it did not. Which is ultimately why space weapons were banned. The nuclear arms race is a game nobody should ever be allowed to win. That's a key point of the whole doctrine.
- adhesive_wombat 3y agoI didn't say it wasn't an effective strategy, since as it happened and we're alive, clearly, luckily, it was. It's just that a plan to blow up a small part of the lunar surface seems fairly not-horrific compared to the actually authorised and deployed plan with a intentional 9-figure death toll and the practical annihilation of many allied countries (the UK in particular was not projected¹ to do very well at all). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strath_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strath_Committee and that is for a fairly mild strike of "only" 10 bombs.