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Comment by Simon_O_Rourke | Hacker News Reader

> "The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts.

In retort - "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks."

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Another scary thing in that book is the delegation of use of nuclear weapons to relatively junior commanders - the public statement that only the US president can authorise the use of nuclear weapons being completely untrue at the time.

That is probably why Ellsberg referred to Dr Strangelove as a documentary...

I wonder if it's still true. I'd assume there still has to be some delegation in order to keep a second strike viable, otherwise the entire nuclear arsenal can be rendered useless with a decapitation strike, or the person with the 'nuclear football' jumps off a bridge or something.

I can only presume there's some delegation of authority still, in case of circumstances like that. The Russians can delegate command authority to a system called "Perimetr" [1], which uses sensors to detect nuclear detonations to ensure a second strike can be (correctly) launched. Still doesn't give me that warm and fussy feeling inside knowing that there's either a rogue system or rogue commander that can launch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

What's interesting about that system is the question of the motivation - it ensures a nuclear holocaust even in the event of a decapitation strike, but it also was said that it could give 'command elements' time to consider to not retaliate in the event of false alarms etc. so that "cooler heads" might prevail.

So it goes.

Ellsberg very eloquently articulated the fallacy that juniors were less trustworthy. I don't think their junior status is an issue. I think perhaps the bigger concern is their quantity. I'll leave it to probability and game theory experts to discuss whether it is better or worse to have more people capable of wielding such a weapon.

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