I recently read "Nuclear War" by Anne Jacobson.
It's a pretty sobering book and I highly recommend it.
Anne Jacobson extensively researched nuclear war scenarios and how our system works. She interviews former generals, defense secretaries, scientists, etc.
In a nutshell, at the beginning of the nuclear age, there were only 2 countries that possessed nukes. Now there are 9. One of these countries is North Korea which has an estimated 50+ nukes.
She takes us through a possible scenario using the mad kind concept where North Korea launches a nuke at Washington DC.
Presently, the way the system is set up, is we will have full confirmation a nuke is heading our way about 8 minutes after launch (our satellites will pick up the rocket blast nearly instantly), after which the POTUS has about 6 minutes to decide whether to strike back and how many nukes we strike back with. The problem is, the ICBMs we send have to fly over Russia and their early warning systems are not as good as ours and they will likely think we are attacking them.
We have a "launch on warning" policy meaning that if we think ICBMs are heading our way (which can't be recalled BTW), we will launch our own ICBMs. Russia has the same policy.
There have been numerous close calls and false alarms over the years.
In the scenario, through a series of miscommunications, lack of good radar, and overall chaos, it ends in full-scale nuclear war and the annihilation of about 5 billion people.
This all happens in 72 minutes. 72 fucking minutes, OVER, end of the world.
In the US 1 person alone has the power to launch for any reason. The POTUS and only the POTUS can do this.
Are you confident Biden can make the right decisions?
Are you confident Trump can?
Are you confident Harris can?
Frankly, at the very least we need to demand that POTUS's have a cognitive test every 3 months.
