Hypothetical scenario:
You’re the President of the United States.
An unnamed foreign adversary nation with thousands of nuclear weapons launches a nuclear-tipped missile that wipes out Los Angeles, killing millions and utterly wrecking the American economy. One missile, one nuke, one city.
The enemy nation tells you that retaliation of *any *sort - economic, diplomatic, conventional-military, limited-nuclear, all-out-nuclear - will result in the enemy nation launching all of its nukes at America, ending the United States’ existence. “One trade sanction or American rifle bullet from an M-16 will be considered and treated the same as a thousand American nukes!” they tell you.
In that scenario, American ballistic-missile submarines would make sure that enemy nation was a pile of dust, too, but still, the USA would be wiped out already.
Your only choice, according to this enemy, is complete acceptance of your losses and no retaliation whatsoever. They promise, though, that there will be no further attacks if you simply let the nuking of LA slide. They remind you that, *“Technically, 99% of the United States still remains intact; it would be a shame to see the 99% destroyed for the sake of avenging the 1%, wouldn’t it?”
*
What do you choose?
No retaliation - accept the loss of LA and move on,
All-out retaliation - settle this matter, even though the US will be wiped out, or
Tell them that we give in. Use that time to deploy every Patriot battery we can. Launch NEACP, evacuate the leadership and institute continuity of government procedures. Prepare as best we can for total war.
Then respond with a single strike on a similarly sized city with a similar economic impact on the aggressor nation. Inform them that:
The United States will not be held hostage at any time, by any other nation, using any type of weapon. If they would like to go down the path of MAD, then so be it.
We will not falter, we will not turn aside, and we will not pay the danegeld. Ever.
As a philosophical exercise it’s an interesting one. But as a practical exercise it fails massively. There are simply too many variables left out and not enough information to make a workable decision. For instance, your aggressor government didn’t prohibit me from taking the steps I did, including spinning up counter rocket systems or in any other way preparing for a massive strike.
MAD isn’t just a a geeky old magazine, it is also good game theory and the only known defense against casual nuclear strikes among nations that are capable of it. Once the originating country is known beyond a reasonable doubt, it has to be wiped off the map with inbound US ICBM’s within the hour. All threatening military assets have to be destroyed along with all of its major cities and the majority of its population.
It is unfortunate but it must happen. Anything less is irresponsible and opens the U.S. and other nations up for further casual nuclear strikes and hostile demands. In scenarios as serious as that, you don’t just say ‘If you do that one more time I just might…do something’. Nope, they have already been warned and it is the job of the nuclear launch command structure to follow through on that promise if such a thing should ever happen.
Full and complete destruction is the only responsible reaction.
Maybe a few commando raids to ensure the leadership is wiped out, but no more than 48 hours of no public reaction.
Anyone who would nuke a metropolis such as LA could not be trusted.
This is exactly the scenario which originated MAD all those years ago - a sneak attack posited as “we can get away with it, because they won’t dare respond”.
MAD says we WILL respond, even if it means nobody survives.
It’s time for China (assuming they are not the aggressor) to have the “World’s Policeman” role anyway.