I really so understand logically why they got to the solution of a single person to make the decision, but play that out. When mutually assured destruction ultimately fails, and it inevitably will, what happens.
The US detects a launch that appears to be aimed at their soil, the president picks from a menu of response options and launches. Do they launch to warn the enemy and create an opening for escalation? Do they launch for complete annihilation? And remember, that can all be triggered by a false positive that was never a launch targeting the US.
Mutually assured destruction kind of made sense with two nuclear powers, maybe can hold with a few more, but it simply doesn't scale. Even with a short list, eventually someone will launch. We won't see those weapons and anything worse to come go completely unused forever.
> When the Commander in Chief gives a command, you're expected to carry it out, but there's an opportunity to object or disobey. And then there's the people who actually push the buttons.
The US detects a launch that appears to be aimed at their soil, the president picks from a menu of response options and launches. Do they launch to warn the enemy and create an opening for escalation? Do they launch for complete annihilation? And remember, that can all be triggered by a false positive that was never a launch targeting the US.
Mutually assured destruction kind of made sense with two nuclear powers, maybe can hold with a few more, but it simply doesn't scale. Even with a short list, eventually someone will launch. We won't see those weapons and anything worse to come go completely unused forever.
> When the Commander in Chief gives a command, you're expected to carry it out, but there's an opportunity to object or disobey. And then there's the people who actually push the buttons.