Assuming that issuing such threats isn’t itself a violation of human rights, if you genuinely see preserving humans as a terminal value, then you would not follow through on such a threat because a counterstrike would result in the opposite of what is demanded by your values. You could say that not following through on such a threat would weaken your strategic position due to a loss of credibility, but in this case you would be subordinating human preservation to credibility preservation, and thus to strategic calculus. If you sacrifice your terminal value for something else, then it wasn’t really your terminal value.
Two reasons for why deterrence works today are 1. countries do not treat human preservation as such as a terminal value, and 2. countries treat their adversary’s population as a negative value to the extent that it can be mobilized against them, thus making a counterstrike desirable.
Assuming that issuing such threats isn’t itself a violation of human rights, if you genuinely see preserving humans as a terminal value, then you would not follow through on such a threat because a counterstrike would result in the opposite of what is demanded by your values. You could say that not following through on such a threat would weaken your strategic position due to a loss of credibility, but in this case you would be subordinating human preservation to credibility preservation, and thus to strategic calculus. If you sacrifice your terminal value for something else, then it wasn’t really your terminal value.
Two reasons for why deterrence works today are 1. countries do not treat human preservation as such as a terminal value, and 2. countries treat their adversary’s population as a negative value to the extent that it can be mobilized against them, thus making a counterstrike desirable.