4 ms·
It's an element of deterrence. If you and your enemy are rattling your nukes at each other, and you know for a fact that their command and control apparatus is
by amenhotep 2y ago
It's an element of deterrence. If you and your enemy are rattling your nukes at each other, and you know for a fact that their command and control apparatus is going to be concentrated in a particular bunker, you might be tempted to see if you can strike that bunker and "win" the exchange with a decapitation strike. Conversely if you know that as soon as the nukes started rattling they launched a plane that can coordinate responses to whatever you do no matter how many bombs you drop on their country, then you will need to destroy all of their forces comprehensively and your path to "victory" looks much worse.
- boppo1 2y agoHuh, so as a civilian, the existence of the doomsday plane lowers my chance of survival because the opposition might bomb the country more, i.e. increase the likelihood my area gets hit?
- amenhotep 2y agoWell, if you take an enemy nuclear strike as given, then yes, I guess it does? But the general consensus is that nuclear bombs hitting your country at all is bad and most strategists try and optimise to avoid it happening altogether, rather than assume it's going to happen and try to make it less unpleasant. It's fairly clear that the optimal thing to do once your enemy has launched a single nuke at you is surrender unconditionally rather than retaliate, but we would probably not prefer to live in a world where launching nukes was seen as a good way to win a negotiation, so we try our best to discourage it.