
Letters of Last Resort - jules-jules
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
======
antasvara
There were four options given in the Wikipedia article, which are:

1\. retaliate with nuclear weapons;

2\. not retaliate;

3\. use his or her own judgement; or

4\. place the submarine under an allied country's command, if possible. The
documentary mentions Australia and the United States.

To me, it seems like the order that I would give those options in would be
4,3,2,1. This is because the most sensible option would be to listen to your
country's allies (as they are likely to have Britain's best interests in
mind). The second best option is to trust the crew, as the situation that
resulted in an entire governmental destruction probably wouldn't respond well
to any blanket statements like 1 and 2. Option 2 makes the next amount of
sense because defaulting to no nuclear weapons is generally a smart policy.
What do you believe should be the correct order?

~~~
thisrod
I'd go with 5. Write one of each letter, and assign them to the submarines in
a double-blind manner, so that no one knows what will happen.

The point of terrorism is to terrify, as they say.

------
Jeema101
The letters have to instruct the commander to retaliate in order for nuclear
deterrance to work - or at least your adversary has to believe that that is
what the letters say. Otherwise your deterrance loses it's power.

Yet if commanders get to the point of actually reading the letters, then
deterrance has obviously failed.

That's what makes these letters so interesting IMO.

------
thisrod
> The documentary mentions Australia

Wow. I'm glad I didn't know that when I was living in Canberra!

It's like _The Godfather_. Every time Australians think we're out of the
empire game, they find a way to drag us back in.

------
yongjik
It seems rather quixotic to have a last-resort plan for your country's
collapse, with a potential to kill additional millions of people, and entrust
the choice to a single person, and never question or even want to know what
the choice was.

Sounds more like an Arthurian legend than stuff of modern diplomacy... but
maybe that's British politics for me...

~~~
c22
Do you think the letters really go unopened? Maybe the Royal Navy takes a peak
to gauge which sort of asshat they'll be dealing with.

------
legitster
> use his or her own judgement

I can't speak for others, but I imagine I would be livid if I ever had to open
one of these and the Prime Minister chose the "just do whatever" option.

~~~
ornornor
Then you’d do what any civilized person would: sit down and have tea.

