Comment by vkou
8 months ago
Should the people who had the most ability to prevent a global nuclear war be survivors of one?
That seems like a misalignment of incentives.
8 months ago
Should the people who had the most ability to prevent a global nuclear war be survivors of one?
That seems like a misalignment of incentives.
Not sure what the next best option here is. There was a thought experiment once where it would require the president to kill the key holder in order to launch a nuclear attack (the launch codes would be embedded in the designated key holder's heart). In theory this would make sure the president knew the seriousness of his or her actions, but it was never seriously considered as a protocol.
The US's ability to respond to a nuclear attack is a deterrence to one beginning in the first place.
The chain of command is designed to be resilient enough to do so without having to bail the VIPs out of the frying pan they landed themselves and the rest of the world in.
They need to have as much skin in the game as everyone else.
In the case of a nuclear attack, most of the nuclear “chain of command” would be targeted and, realistically, many would not survive. The continuity of government plan for a nuclear attack isn’t designed to get all the influential muckety mucks out of the frying pan, it is to attempt to get the bare minimum of decision makers to secure facilities like Site-R or onto Doomsday Planes so they can wage an all-out nuclear retaliatory war. Very very few people would make it out of DC, and even getting anyone Sec Def or above out would be a very close thing.
The point is that for deterrence to work, it has to be credible. If Russia thought it could “kill” the US government so that no one would be able to effectively order a counterattack (either because they are dead or because they can’t communicate orders to actual nuclear forces), would they do it?
Penn & Teller's book 'Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends' included a short story whose premise was a test to see if the president would be more likely to start a nuclear war if a safe bunker was available.
OTOH, turning "instigate a nuclear war" into a way to assassinate specific people also seems like a bad idea?