I saw some people in the Ukraine megathread advocating for Russia to not launch the nukes in return if America were to nuke them, and it’s scaring me the fuck out rn.
If whole premise of MAD is that a nuclear first strike, while killing your enemies, would be suicide. The whole premise is that of a Mexican standoff where if one party shoots, the other shoots also.
The suicidal nature of a nuclear first strike is the only thing keeping the world from nuclear devastation rn.
Please don’t fucking advocate for victims of an American nuclear first strike to not retaliate.
(BTW, America is the only power who hasn’t relinquished their right to a first strike anyways)
:stalin-approval:
There’s so many stories about soldiers who refused orders to fire nukes after a false alarm and saved the world. There are no such stories where that alarm was legitimate because the only nuclear weapons ever used in armed conflict were used against a nation without second strike capability.
International relations are about power, not morality. To acknowledge that nuclear war is the worst case scenario for everyone involved would involve taking the option off the table and removing the deterrent. So everyone has to act like they’re ready to do a second strike.
Russia’s policy is close in so much as that it allows use ONLY in the event of aggressive conventional weapon usage that poses an existential threat to the state, which is essentially a territorial invasion with the intention of takeover or regime change.
This is fairly close to a no-first-use policy in my opinion. It’s essentially a defensive-use-only policy.
If the Nukes just start falling in all the parts of the world everyone dies. Asking for any country to make sure that doesn’t happen really isn’t that controversial.
mad seems stupid to me, in that sociopaths basically value themselves above all others. most people who get to the position of power are narcissistic sociopaths that have no problem watching people starve to death, and above all else, narcissists hate themselves and are prone to suicide.
so all it would take is one of them to have a bad fucking day.
