Hacker News Reader

No sane person would initiate a first strike --it's uncertain whether someone would be able to launch a full retaliatory strike. Only insane people like Castro and LeMay would give orders to launch. Today's nukes are near-civilization ending. They are not the equivalent of a month's worth of carpet bombing executed in one sortie.

View on HN

Nukes have been civilization ending since the 1960s. You should see the plans made by American planners at the time. They joked about having to turn the nation of Albania into nothing. US has enough sensors to track when launches occur that a retaliatory strike would be launched almost immediately. Even if missiles somehow got through to the continent, we have many of them in discrete locations on submarines, waiting to launch. We are even using our navy more for missile defense since there are advantages to being mobile and ephemeral than having a fixed defensive battery that everyone can see on google earth satellite imagery.

The problem is if a country leader/government thinks that is worth ending civilization because there is something kind of afterlife that is better.. you hear the argument made about Iran. Not sure if I agree. But MAD breaks down if on side does not care about surving. Which makes nukes really scary..

Reply on news.ycombinator.com