F35 vs. A10?

[Smitty-48]

North Korea is a Missile Crisis just waiting to happen.

If Iran gets the bomb that will be problemo on steroids.

Pakistan rogue nuke cavalcade.

[Smitty-48]

I suspect that eventually, a nuclear exchange will happen. Idk where, but its a certainty. If you had to hazard a guess, where is this most likely to take place? My money is on India/Pakistan. Do you think that a conventional war would follow, or would each side keep launching nukes until they were all rubble? Also, would a nuclear exchange lead to WW3?

Subcontinent is very plausible.

China and India is plausible.

China and Russia is plausible to me. They could have a falling out at any moment.

Russia v Europe, Russia back against the wall, America dithering.

China and Japan, China bites off more than it can chew, brandishes the nukes.

Israel back against a wall, goes to the neutron bombs.

There are actually ever expanding and escalating options all over the place.

Do you think that if such an exchange occured lets say in India and Pakistan, that the US president would immediately call the Chinese and Russian leaders and tell them something like, "Ok, this is bad shit, but I'm not going to launch any nukes if you don't" or would it just trigger off a major exchange or ICBMS like at the end of Terminator 3? Once you go nuclear, is there any way to contain it? I often wonder what the protocol is for nuke subs or remote areas in instances like that. If they hear that a nuke has been launched anywhere, are they just required to launch their own payloads immediately, or do they need to wait for orders from above?

Nope. If a nuke pops in battle, everybody is going to go the mattresses on hair trigger alert and nobody will be in control of it.

[heydaralon]

Does the president have the sole authority to launch nukes at his own discretion? Did you ever see the Dead Zone with Christopher Walken? Picture that. Could the president wake up one day and say, "I want to nuke France. Give me the football?" Does the military have any say so in the final decision?

[Smitty-48]

The public will go hysterical, the government will go hysterical immediately after.

[Smitty-48]

Does the president have the sole authority to launch nukes at his own discretion? Did you ever see the Dead Zone? Could the president wake up one day and say, "I want to nuke France. Give me the football?" Does the military have any say so in the final decision?

The Football and the Biscuit are for Launch on Warning, attack on America, Article 51 self defense, if the President just hauls off and issues a crazy order to nuke somebody without due cause, the chain of command can decline that as an unlawful order under national and international law and the laws of armed conflict.

[heydaralon]

Does the president have the sole authority to launch nukes at his own discretion? Did you ever see the Dead Zone? Could the president wake up one day and say, "I want to nuke France. Give me the football?" Does the military have any say so in the final decision?

The Football and the Biscuit are for Launch on Warning, attack on America, Article 51 self defense, if the President just hauls off and issues a crazy order to nuke somebody without due cause, the chain of command can decline that as an unlawful order under national and international law and the laws of armed conflict.

never heard of biscuit before lol. If the president did issue a crazy order like that, and the military chain of command denied the request, what then? Does the president get arrested? Martial law? I can't see a situation where an order like that is denied and everyone being like, "we're cool, nbd, let's just forget this whole thing."

[Smitty-48]

Bear in mind that American officers are hyper professionals, very confident in their own authority, if the President orders them to do something crazy, they will decline that, and in extremis, they could arrest him and place him under guard.

[Smitty-48]

That being said, if I was President and I wanted a nuclear war, I could incite a theater conventional war to the theater thermonuclear brink, then ride that wave to a preemptive counterforce.

I would build the counterforce first tho, America is not set up for counterforce right now.

[heydaralon]

I would build the counterforce first tho, America is not set up for counterforce right now.

In this instance, what do you mean by counterforce?

[Smitty-48]

I would build the counterforce first tho, America is not set up for counterforce right now.

In this instance, what do you mean by counterforce?

Nuclear war comes in two flavors.

Countervalue and Counterforce.

Countervalue is where you attack the population centers, doomsday deterrent.

Counterforce is an operational war wherein you destroy only the enemies warfighting capacity to preempt him.