
Almost everything in Dr. Strangelove was true (2014) - danieka
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true
======
pavlov
The US president has a "Presidential Decision Handbook" available at all
times, which includes a menu of nuclear retaliation options. In theory he can
launch these on his authority alone. Some would kill more than 100 million
people:

 _" The president can select nuclear strike packages against three categories
— military targets, war-supporting or economic targets and leadership targets.
There are sub-options, and the menu allows a president to withhold attacks on
specific targets.

Two officials said that the “Black Book” also includes estimates on the number
of casualties for each of the main options that run into the millions, and in
some cases over 100 million. Officials who have dealt with nuclear-war options
said that learning the details can be horrifying and that there is a “Dr.
Strangelove” feel to the whole enterprise."_

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/world/national-
security/president-elect-donald-trump-is-about-to-learn-the-nations-deep-
secrets/2016/11/12/8bf9bc40-a847-11e6-8fc0-7be8f848c492_story.html%3F0p19G%3De)

I can see the next president tweeting at 3.30 am: "Should I launch Black Book
option 17C? I'll keep you in suspense..."

~~~
oxide
It sounds a little defeated, but hasn't nuclear war been inevitable since the
invention of the nuclear weapon? if no, why not?

It's strange how distant the idea of nuclear war seems to my mind when I try
to imagine the perspective of someone who lived through the Cold War.

It's even more strange to imagine my own country as being a nuclear
instigator. Metal Gear Solid is the closest I've come to nuclear doctrine, and
in that game the US is there to stop a terrorist nuclear threat and protect
deterrence, not keep the nuclear option on the table and potentially flush
deterrence down the toilet. It causes some dissonance.

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atemerev
It is interested how can cultural differences play out. We Russians always
thought that placing the ultimate power of authorizing the nuclear strike in
the hands of a single individual is irresponsible (we of all people know
really well that said individual can go insane without a prior warning). So,
adding non-human components into decision loop is regarded as an improvement
by Russians. We don't really trust fellow humans, especially in positions of
authority.

~~~
arethuza
I wonder what that says about the UK where the last resort set of instructions
to Trident sub crews is a set of hand written letters from the current PM:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort)

~~~
spangry
Wow, now I really want to know what's in one of those letters. Apparently the
British PM is presented with 4 possible options, according to that wiki page:

'The Guardian reported in 2016 that the options are said to include: "Put
yourself under the command of the US, if it is still there", "Go to
Australia", "Retaliate", or "Use your own judgement".'

Personally, I vote for the 'Go to Australia' thing :)

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michaelt
I read an interesting book a while ago by Thomas Schelling [1] that said in
nuclear launch systems, being unreliable is a feature not a bug.

Let's say you want to threaten your enemy with nuclear war so they'll do what
you want. Maybe you want them to withdraw their missiles from Cuba. The threat
you make actually has two components - the claim you'll launch, and the
credibility of that claim. The enemy is only scared of the /product/ of threat
and credibility, so if either is zero your enemy has nothing to fear.

If you say "we'll certainly launch" you have no credibility (you'd have
launched already, and everyone can see you haven't) and if you say "we
certainly won't launch" you have no threat.

In fact, Schelling points out, the only credible threats are /randomized/
threats, that fall somewhere between 100% and 0% chance of launching. You
threaten your enemy by showing him you have a system that has a 0.1% chance of
launching per day, and you'll roll the dice every day until they withdraw
their missiles from cuba (or whatever you want them to do).

Except rather than rolling dice, the random threat is from systems failures
and mad generals.

This is what the DEFCON level is really about - increasing the 'readiness
level' amounts to reducing the controls that prevent accidental launches,
increasing the threat of a random launch.

'Doomsday machines' can be explained by a similar calculation: Nobody will
believe you if you claim you'll trigger nuclear war if a single soldier took a
single step over a border. So why would you for two soldiers or two steps - or
indeed the capture of some trifling town near one of your allies' borders?
It's not like mutually assured destruction will become a more palatable
concept when the enemy tanks are ten miles over the border instead of one.

However, if you build a doomsday machine with tank detectors ten miles past
the border, then you give enemy diplomats and spies a tour and show them that
it works, the claim that you'll launch has credibility /despite/ the fact the
ten mile line is arbitrary. The invader's calculation is no longer "If our
conventional forces do X, will /they/ trigger a launch?" but instead "Do /we/
want to trigger a launch?" and the answer to that is always 'no'.

So Dr Strangelove is actually a pretty well informed film :)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling#The_Strategy_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling#The_Strategy_of_Conflict_.281960.29)

~~~
jballanc
Very interesting idea. It certainly jives with the British tradition of
Letter's of Last Resort
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort)
; "This American Life" also did an interesting piece on these letters:
[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/399/...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/399/contents-unknown) ).

Essentially, the Brits have nuclear subs positioned around the world ready to
launch. If, for some reason, the UK gets wiped out and one of these subs
becomes disconnected from the chain of command, then a letter locked in the
Captain's safe contains instructions on what to do: launch, or don't launch.
One would think the very existence of these letters, and the non-zero
probability that they would say "don't launch", reduces the effectiveness of
the UK's nuclear deterrent under a MAD strategy, but as you point out it is
actually the non-zero probability that one of these subs becomes accidentally
disconnected and the letter in their safe says "launch" that makes their
deterrent work in the first place.

Essentially, in game theory terms you're turning a prisoner's dilemma into a
Nash equilibrium, which while it sounds straight-forward enough in theory is
not always so simple to achieve in practice.

~~~
michaelt
Well, the UK is a bit of a special case - the main time a threat to launch is
unconvincing is if (a) you're trying to change the status quo or (b) you're
protecting an ally and it wouldn't really hurt you to cut them loose.

If Britain claims they'll launch if London is attacked, that's pretty
believable on its own. If Britain (say) claims they'll launch if Russia
invades the Crimean Peninsula, that's kind of hard to believe.

As Britain's cold war allies were also America's cold war allies, Britain
didn't really /need/ to scare the soviets with the chance of a random launch
as America pretty much had that taken care of. And as Britain is an island,
they didn't have the 'soldiers crossed the border by accident' problem either.

~~~
sgt101
Britain and France (and other small countries in Europe) faced a strategic
issue in that "The Soviets" could escalate a nuclear war to a tactical /medium
range missile level, avoid the use of strategic missiles and pulverise western
europe. In the meantime the US would probably use tactical weapons to kill
many soviet troops and smash up eastern europe and bits of places like
Ukraine, but to strike at Moscow from Germany would have been a strategic
escalation and Soviet strategists might have argued that the US wouldn't have
made it. On the other hand a British PM faced with 100 or more H-bomb
detonations + fall out from the 500 or more that the conflict in Europe would
have required (probably closer to 800 given that the red army plan called for
450 +) probably would have. And it would have been difficult for a strategist
to argue that they wouldn't, much less "The French" who were all drunk all the
time as any good Soviet well knew.

------
dzdt
How do we ever get beyond mutually assured destruction? It is so obviously an
unstable solution, but for 50+ years this has remained the basis underlying
the survival of humanity.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
The obvious answer is to have no nuclear weapons. But everyone will think to
themselves "We got rid of our nukes, but if they still have a few then we
could be totally totally screwed."

The more feasible way is arms limitation. Let's say you go from having enough
nukes to destroy the entire planet to merely having enough to end your
opponent's civilization as we know it. But the more alliances means the more
enemies or even targets on your own side.

10,000 to 1,000 is relatively easy. 1,000 to 100 is very very hard. <100 will
probably never happen :(

~~~
spangry
I kinda feel like that 'safest' option, even when including the 'no nukes'
option, is for stable and rational powers to have lots of nukes, and probably
a 'fail-deadly' doomsday machine type setup. If they're all rational, and all
know about each other's doomsday machines/deadman's switch, they wouldn't
attack each other as it would be tantamount to suicide.

Of course, things start to get a bit dicey when you add not so rational
nuclear powers in to the mix (e.g. North Korea), or diversion of nuclear bombs
to not so rational 'non-state actors'.

~~~
bertiewhykovich
> If they're all rational

I feel you, but that assumption is where this argument diverges from reality.

------
Graham24
Is it also true that one was not allowed to fight in the War Room?

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Beltiras
Here's an astonishing tale [1] from the Cold War about nuclear weapons.

    
    
      [1] http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2016-11-09

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danohu
More recently: Bill Clinton supposedly lost the nuclear launch codes for a few
months
[http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/21/shelton.clinton.n...](http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/10/21/shelton.clinton.nuclear.codes/)

~~~
andrewl
The article says that Clinton was probably unaware of the loss of the codes.

