One of the factors to consider, that contrasts with old-fashioned hostage exchanges as described, is that you would never allow your nation’s leaders to visit any city that you knew had such an arrangement. Not as a group, and probably not individually. You could never justify doing this kind of agreement for Washington DC or Beijing or Moscow, in the way that you can justify, “We both have missiles that can hit anywhere, including your capital city.” The traditional approach is to make yourself vulnerable enough to credibly signal unwillingness to betray one another, but only enough that there is still a price at which you would make the sacrifice.
Also, consider that compared to the MAD strategy of having launchable missiles, this strategy selectively disincentivizes people from wanting to move to whatever cities were the subject of such agreements, which were probably your most productive and important cities.
There’s are real concerns, but I feel like we are only formalizing the status quo.
Throughout the Cold War, it would have been fairly easy to kill the other sides leader, especially if you are willing to use a nuke. I still thank that is true. The president’s travel schedule is public, and its not like he’s always within 15 minutes of a nuclear bunker. The reason countries don’t assassinate each other’s heads of state is not because they are unable to.
If you live in Manhattan or Washington DC today, you basically can assume you will be nuked first, yet people live their lives. Granted people could behave differently under this scenario for non-logical reasons.
If you live in Manhattan or Washington DC today, you basically can assume you will be nuked first, yet people live their lives. Granted people could behave differently under this scenario for non-logical reasons.
My understanding is that in the Cold War, a basic MAD assumption was that if anyone were going to launch a first strike, they’d try to do so with overwhelming force sufficient to prevent a second strike, hitting everything at once.
If you can strike in a way that prevents retaliation that would, by definition, not be mutually assured destruction. Your understanding is also wrong, at least for most of the cold war. Nuclear submarines make it impossible to strike so hard they can’t fire back, and they have been around since 1960. People in the cold war were very much afraid of living in a potential target area, but life went on.
If you can strike in a way that prevents retaliation that would, by definition, not be mutually assured destruction.
Correct, which is in part why so much effort went into developing credible second strike capabilities, building up all parts of the nuclear triad, and closing the supposed missile gap. Because both the US and USSR had sufficiently credible second strike capabilities, it made a first strike much less strategically attractive and reduced the likelihood of one occurring. I’m not sure how your comment disagrees with mine? I see them as two sides of the same coin.
One of the factors to consider, that contrasts with old-fashioned hostage exchanges as described, is that you would never allow your nation’s leaders to visit any city that you knew had such an arrangement. Not as a group, and probably not individually. You could never justify doing this kind of agreement for Washington DC or Beijing or Moscow, in the way that you can justify, “We both have missiles that can hit anywhere, including your capital city.” The traditional approach is to make yourself vulnerable enough to credibly signal unwillingness to betray one another, but only enough that there is still a price at which you would make the sacrifice.
Also, consider that compared to the MAD strategy of having launchable missiles, this strategy selectively disincentivizes people from wanting to move to whatever cities were the subject of such agreements, which were probably your most productive and important cities.
There’s are real concerns, but I feel like we are only formalizing the status quo.
Throughout the Cold War, it would have been fairly easy to kill the other sides leader, especially if you are willing to use a nuke. I still thank that is true. The president’s travel schedule is public, and its not like he’s always within 15 minutes of a nuclear bunker. The reason countries don’t assassinate each other’s heads of state is not because they are unable to.
If you live in Manhattan or Washington DC today, you basically can assume you will be nuked first, yet people live their lives. Granted people could behave differently under this scenario for non-logical reasons.
My understanding is that in the Cold War, a basic MAD assumption was that if anyone were going to launch a first strike, they’d try to do so with overwhelming force sufficient to prevent a second strike, hitting everything at once.
If you can strike in a way that prevents retaliation that would, by definition, not be mutually assured destruction. Your understanding is also wrong, at least for most of the cold war. Nuclear submarines make it impossible to strike so hard they can’t fire back, and they have been around since 1960. People in the cold war were very much afraid of living in a potential target area, but life went on.
Correct, which is in part why so much effort went into developing credible second strike capabilities, building up all parts of the nuclear triad, and closing the supposed missile gap. Because both the US and USSR had sufficiently credible second strike capabilities, it made a first strike much less strategically attractive and reduced the likelihood of one occurring. I’m not sure how your comment disagrees with mine? I see them as two sides of the same coin.