Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9754887:


Thank you so much Petrov 23 4, 8:44am

'@LoveIsGood'' #9754875'
Nope. Not only power of nuclear arsenal is often overstated, it's employment is also widely misunderstood.
There was always a competition between counter-force and counter-value attacks, probability of limited conflict and a whole lot of strategic and political considerations. That's why political and military leadership makes final decision - those people should decide on what list of targets to hit and and how hard.

Even if there is an all-out nuclear war when your every major population and industrial center is wiped out, significant part of military will survive by either leaving the targeted area, taking cover in hardened bases or being concealed to avoid targeting in the first place.
So if you took the first strike, you counter-strike should destroy as much of opponent's ability to attack or defend as possible. You don't just kill civilian population (though in total war every death or destroyed asset counts), you also hit airfields, oil fields, factories, transport hubs, ports, whatever it takes to make it easier for your surviving tanks and infantry to capture the enemy territory before you run out of fuel and spare part reserves.
The only way to stop the fight is to kill everyone willing to continue, and there are never enough nukes for that.

Also, "the guy" wasn't fired - he resigned either because of work-related stress or wife's poor health, depending on what article you read. He was not decorated or promoted, mostly because inspection after the event uncovered (as it usually happens) that thing's weren't being done as they should have been. Punishment is being demoted, kicked out and refused any but the most marginal employment. That's not how someone gets a place of lead engineer in research institute for next 13 years.

"The button" he had wasn't even connected to anything, that was just a bit of legacy hardware left at workstation. Information about attack was forwarded by computer to every relevant decision-maker automatically right at the moment the alarm went off. He took on himself decision that would otherwise would be made further up the chain.