Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-3257939-20151009080148/@comment-24891101-20151011032839

This means that a nuke launch will result in immediate retaliation in kind. Meaning you want to launch a devastating first strike, but also somehow eliminate second-strike capability. With subs and sufficient radar warning, this is basically impossible, meaning you're going to get hit too. That means you don't do it in the first place.

It also means that if there is a limited launch, then they will also get hit back. This is because of the threat of a slippery slope. If anyone gets away with using a nuke, what's to say they don't demand more? When's their bluff (or not, in this case) going to be called? Better to prevent it from even being an option.

Moreover, on a non-leadership level, it means that anyone who knows anything about this anywhere nearby has a lot of motivation to do something drastic to prevent it. If the president decided to nuke Russia, and you were a Secret Service agent, knowing your family would surely die in the retaliatory strike, would you just shoot the president to stop the deaths of your loved ones and millions of people? Or anyone else nearby anywhere in that chain of command could likewise do it. And they would. That's human nature.

The goal is to make it unthinkable. And we succeeded.