Countries have quite happily committed suicide. Consider the attack on the United States by Imperial Japan. Everyone in that government knew that the war they were starting was unwinnable. They were right, and their empire and government was dismantled in 1945.

You can't expect rational behavior from governments. In a time of crisis, there will always be some idiot in power, who doesn't want to face reality, or cares about their pet issue more then overall well-being, or feels that they have no alternative options.

Excellent (and terrifying) read. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_2020_Commission_Report_o...

Interesting. But I doubt South Korea would attack the North, knowing perfectly well their main cities can be razed to the ground by NK's conventional, not even nuclear weapons. At the same time, I don't think North Korea would start blasting off nukes over major cities, that would be pointless. In the worst case, a single nuke over the ocean, but close enough to a target, would be a sufficient signal of readiness to defend itself. Directing nuclear bombs to major targets as a first move doesn't make much sense, you don't leave the enemy any other option than obliterating you.

Note that the incident is started by North Korea downing a civilian jet, even if by mistake, South Korea reacting, NK going berserk with nukes, US responding with conventional weapons... Hmmm, a bit kind towards the West. The US certainly come out as the level headed guys, which doesn't sound very coherent with recent rhetoric and events.

In the book, the guy with the "Nuclear football" basically runs away at one point, but yeah, I'm not seeing a non-nuclear response. Tit-for-tat is the entire basis of MAD.

The conventional response is modeled on Mattis' philosophy. The US clearly comes out divided as a country and destroyed politically and economically because Trump couldn't tweet.

I would add Nazi Germany to that little list. Their declaration of war on the United States in December of 1941 was flatly suicidal (already fighting Russia where they had lost the initiative, and already in a two front European war due to the continued presence of England) But declare war they did anyhow and not only was the Third Reich dismantled, it was flat out devastated and incinerated with several million deaths. Germany suffered the second highest death toll of any country in the European theater of war, and all this was allowed to suicidally happen despite every single one of Hitler's generals and most of the top Nazi party bosses completely knowing that their leader's decision in late 1941 was guaranteed to destroy them. They just went along with it though.

Churchill rather typically stated it most succinctly: When presented in late 1941 with the report of Hitlers declaration of War on the U.S he said (paraphrasing a bit from memory on the literature) "So then we do win this war after all.."

As for Japan, SOME of the top people in the government and military knew they were committing slow suicide with their attack (Yamamoto for example, thought it was complete idiocy to fight the U.S) but there were enough fanatical believers to push through their idea that if they could just get the upper hand on the U.S in a preemptive naval/air war in 1942, they might secure peace for their Asian conquests.

Ye but there was contextual alignment then. No country is doing moves like that in 2019.

Iraq did a move like that in 2002. The United States demanded that Saddam Hussein let weapons inspectors in (to look for WMDs that, as it turns out, did not exist), and something, something, bullshit, something 9/11.

Saddam Hussein thought that telling the United States to go pound sand was the correct move. He thought that all the talk by the warhawks in the Bush administration was just bluster.

As it turns out, that talk was not bluster, telling the US to sod off was not the correct move, he got to dance the hemp fandango, and 16 years later, Iraq is still in the middle of a civil war.

These kinds of geopolitical failures happen when one country's leadership mispredicts how another country will react to its actions. This can happen in any year, be it 1939, 1941, 2002, or 2019.

Pretty big difference in situations. I don't recall any country in recent history making such a big move as firing a nuke at the US out of the blue. Not in 1939, 1941, 2002, or 2019.

These things don't start by one side firing a nuke.

They either start by one side believing the other side fired a nuke. (See: Every close call having to do with a communication failure/false detection.)

Or by one side believing that firing a tactical nuke is the only way to accomplish their goal. The battle doctrines of both the United States, and Russia, permit the use of tactical nuclear weapons in conventional military engagements. I wouldn't be surprised if, in a shooting war, some idiot were to actually use a tactical nuclear weapon, believing that it would not escalate into an exchange of strategic nuclear weapons.

> It's more a question of if you think anyone (in possession of icbms at least) would take that risk in the current state of the world?

It doesn't have to be anybody's decision. Cascading mistakes and system failures happen.

In addition to what the sibling mentions, there are also technical failures, mistakes, and rogue actors. Granted, these are ICBMs; but starting a war between Russia and the US is likely to be very profitable for someone.

I really can't find a reason to agree with this. I guess if we use different definitions of "war." But a total war between any two superpowers will be profitable for no one.

> But a total war between any two superpowers will be profitable for no one.

This assertion has no historical basis. Plenty of people stand to profit from such a war. Just look at World War II. Countries, companies, and individuals profited greatly. Even in the worst case of total nuclear annihilation, someone who was prepared for such an event could profit, depending on your definition of profit. In any case, what matters is whether the people involved believe they can profit; however they define profit.