That is fantastic news. I hope to God those soldiers in the silos are trained to question and refuse the order without hesitation. In fact they should be tested with random drills to make sure they never...ever...ever obey the President of the United States of America.
I am so relieved to know this. whew.
Consider this, despite all the stuff Hollywood has portrayed.
Remember, our seriously (
unilateral disarmament serious) antinuclear Hollywood, who has, since the Korean War managed to portray American troops as bloodthirsty yahoos who'll 'kill 'em all and let God sort them out', or 'easy, just don't lead them as much', or 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning', or My Lai, or a host of other hit pieces...I hope you catch on, but seldom in Hollywood do they portray the predominantly honorable men and women of our armed forces who do take their job of defending this country seriously in a good light.
At least not since World War Two.
McCarthy was right, and there is a reason for that portrayal, and it has suited the political bent of our mass media, including film, to try to weaken this nation in any way possible. Part of their politics has been to demean American Armed Services in any way possible, and they have become far more adept at using imagery less blatant than Dr. Strangelove to get their 'message' across.
That 'message' has included the raving lunatic able to end the world with a single press of a button, a dominant theme.
From Planet of the Apes (the one with Charlton Hesston in it), the dystopian post-apocalyptic future has been an alien and dismal place for the humans scratching through the dumpsters and ashes of tomorrow. Even if nuclear weapons were not involved, no one sweeps the sidewalks of that dismal future, except to make Soylent Green. When was the last time you saw a movie that showed anything hopeful and bright in store for humankind?
They market fear and despair in Hollywood, because those are the manipulative tools they trade in. Those sobering, if dark visions of the future have pervaded our thoughts. The concept that any nuclear war would be total war was repeatedly flashed before your eyes in the movie Wargames, for instance. Yet, in reality, we've already had our first nuclear war.
We won.
We didn't use those weapons to take over the world (okay, we didn't have very many of them), but you catch my drift. It was not our intent to take over the world, but to end a war. It worked. The world survived, with some local problems, and on a personal level for those on target, some horrific results. Those cities are again thriving, and despite the shock of losing so many so fast, more were killed in incendiary bombing raids on Tokyo, done with the intent of causing firestorms. That city thrives, too, as do cities in Europe which were bombed out of existence. Far more contamination resulted from testing other weapons elsewhere than from those two bombs, and much of that contamination on our own soil.
That order to again use nuclear weapons in wartime will never be issued without due deliberation. With 30 minutes or less of flight time the situation will have to be assessed swiftly and correctly, and decisions made before incoming warheads destroy our own capability. For an all out launch, think 'the end of the world as we know it'--not that humans won't survive (we've been through worse), but our technology won't, and that's where the 'as we know it' part comes in. Many individuals would not last long, on both sides. But there are alternatives to MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) and not all of those would result in all out war.
There are several standing orders where different possibilities have been gamed out, where appropriate responses have been calculated, the number of warheads (including those which failed to launch, for whatever reason), anticipated casualties (military and civilian), radii of destruction, blast and thermal effects, fallout patterns, effects on hardened targets and war fighting capability, and while that may be a cold calculus, it has been done for a wide range of limited strike scenarios as well. Never has the saying "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet." been more appropriate than planning strike packages for different scenarios that might evolve.
If, for instance, Iran delivered a nuclear device on one of our carrier groups, hand wringing and harsh letters to the UN won't cut it.
A swift and violent end to their nuclear capability, with whatever collateral damage that entails, would be appropriate, and serve as a deterrent to all, anywhere, to never try that again. Anything less would communicate a lack of resolve on our part and our weapons would lose their deterrent function, without the will to use them in even a limited fashion in an in kind retaliation.
If it is deemed necessary by the people we currently trust not to order tanks into schoolyards and bombing missions on our daycare centers, people (at the top) who have wives and children and grandchildren, and whom I would wager have spent far more time contemplating the results of such an order in minute detail-- not just for them, but their progeny as well (bunker or no bunker), I would trust those far down the military food chain who are given the launch order to perform their duty, without hesitation. If the missiles are ordered to go out, I hope they do, and perform as they are designed, and that their payloads do also.
I don't take this lightly, I live a mere 50 air miles from the nearest ICBM silo. Depending on the wind (those in that missile wing are downwind, normally) I might have a day, maybe a day and a half to hunker in the bunker when the fallout from the strikes on the missile fields well west of me started drifting in--because all of those would be targets, too, especially if there was a major power major launch. One degree of guidance system error by our enemies, and my life might be measured in milliseconds.
I may joke about it, but I really do have a ringside seat for WWIII.
But while I hope if all is so dire that the order comes, that all functions as advertised, I also fully hope and pray there is never a situation which in any way will come close to necessitating that order being given. By anyone, anywhere.
Similarly, I pray "Dear God, I hope I never have to shoot anyone, but If I do, don't let me miss." Which reminds me, I could use some range time.
Thanks for reading the whole thing if you did, because I want you to understand my reasoning (yes, reasoning) in hoping that those men and women will do their duty if the order comes down. Because I don't think even the most hot headed POTUS would issue it lightly.
