> "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner"
By Daniel Fucking Ellsberg, AKA OG Snowden. Basically the Pentagon Papers weren't the only crazy shit he saw back in the day. In 2017 he published a book describing all the rest, arguing enough time had passed that he felt comfortable disclosing assorted highly classified info.
Clean Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704
I'd recommend this fabulous book by Ellsberg which goes into detail exactly what the nuclear war scenarios look like at the Pentagon, how they come up with casualty estimates and long-term impacts, etc. Ellsberg tends to.. ramble a bit I guess and the last chapter isn't much more than an idealistic call for nuclear disarmament, but overall a great peek behind the curtain into cold war nuclear planning.
Anyway, a full scale strategic nuclear exchange would be insanely damaging and would obliterate numerous major and mid-sized cities all over the United States and Russia. I'm not sure how we can say "oh it'll just look like Germany after WW2" when modern nuclear weapons are an order of magnitude more powerful than the Hiroshima / Nagasaki devices.
Both of you terrify me with your lack of knowledge around nuclear weapons. You're so blaze. Russian nuclear forces are terrifying. As are the United States. An exchange between either of them will be cataclysmic for humanity, the majority from the nuclear winter that will follow and the mass starvations. Assuming you don't die in the blast or radiation poisoning.
A first strike against Russia won't work. It's fantasy. Both countries spent decades developing all manner of systems and procedures to ensure even with a solid first strike package that you somehow managed to surprise the enemy with they are going to have numerous systems to retaliate with.
Read this book: https://www.amazon.com.au/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704
Is the dead hand system even real ? As far as I understood given the top down focus of the soviet union there was a lot less delegation versus the US as far as nuclear launches. I think everyone knows about the infamous thing about the PAL code being 6 zeros in the US (http://web.archive.org/web/20040404013440/http://www.cdi.org/blair/permissive-action-links.cfm) for the longest time. Fewer know about the enormous incompetence of delegation of strike authorization to random 20 something lieutenants and easily spoof-able authorization codes as outlined in https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704
>The question is, would we rather live in a world where nuclear terrorism is the means to power and security?
This is, broadly speaking, the world we live in today. The mere position of being a nuclear power means any threats, even if they are not weapon-specific, imply the possibility of nuclear escalation (here's a great article on nuclear blackmail that addresses this very topic).
Indeed, threats and nuclear threats have been a part of the nuclear age since its inception (see: Truman in Korea, Eisenhower in Korea, threats over Taiwan in the 60s, etc.). The difference here is not the mere presence of the nuclear threat itself; its that the threat seems so far outside the boundaries of what we would consider to be "appropriate" in international affairs.
There's a lot written on this exact topic (for a quick read that isn't overly technical I'd recommend The Doomsday Machine) but generally speaking, nuclear weapons are built not to be used but so that we may credibly threaten their use to compel or deter an adversary into an action or outcome we desire.
The risk currently at play (that grows increasingly) is that by pushing up against Russia's "red lines" we may miscalculate and inadvertently wind up in a position where a conventional strike on Russian troops in Ukraine is required as a response to nuclear weapons usage by Russia.
Once that happens? all bets are off in terms of predictability.
According to Daniel Ellsberg, the US has always had a first strike policy.
And by default, NATO.
The goal of the various missile defence programs was a defence against retaliation, not a Russian, or originally Soviet, first strike.
Its possible the Russia also has a first strike policy. Historical incidents would indicate otherwise.
There’s a guy who had the job of figuring out what would happen if we did that. His conclusion: it would not go well for anyone, to put it mildly.
https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704
Even that won't start WW3. It's just not worth it.
On the other hand.. If Russians bring any tactical nuclear weapons "just in case". And it gets mishandled / triggered accidentally (there's number of close calls in US history, not much info around Soviet Union side). Then.. I don't really know. But after reading The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner and Command and Control I'm surprised we're still here.