# You're POTUS:  Would you nuke Russia?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-russia/740443>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 14, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-russia/740443 "2015-12-14T19:59:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-russia/740443/1 "2015-12-14T19:59:15Z")

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So I was chatting with a couple of friends about this and that and (somehow) we got onto the subject of the Cuban missile crisis. Anyway, I forget how the conversation ended but it got me thinking about what I would have done if I was JFK. Now, I don’t actually know all that much about the Cuban missile crisis so I’ve come up with a scenario instead.

* * *

You’re POTUS. It’s the height of the Cold War. The world is balancing on a knife edge. You receive intel from a spy which says:

1. The Russians have a secret nuclear base _somewhere_ in Moscow, fully armed with long range missiles.

2. They will be nuking a major American city in six hours.

That’s all the message says. The intel comes from a very reliable source. Your generals recommend that the only viable thing to do is destroy the missiles before they destroy you. Since you’ve only got a few hours, and since you don’t know _where_ in Moscow the missiles are, the generals recommend using your own nukes first.

## What do you do?

So there’s the situation. The poll has a (long) list of possible actions you could take. Just pick the one which you think is best.

At this point, I want to remind anyone that this is a _thought experiment_ designed to test one’s commitment to a _principle_. The question really is **“How threatened would you, as POTUS, need to feel before committing to decisive military action?”** If you have an objection along the lines of _“Well, geopolitically speaking, options XYZ wouldn’t be valid because if I did that then the Chinese would blahblahblah,”_ or _“Destroying the missiles wouldn’t work because militarizzzzzzzzzzzz,”_ or _“I could never be 100% certain of anything.”_, then you’re not really getting into the spirit of it. Assume whatever you need to assume in order to address the central question.

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**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-russia/740443/2 "2015-12-14T20:11:49Z")

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This decision would never be made upon a single spy’s somewhat limited word. There would need to be a lot of corroborating evidence.  
This sort of thing would have all sorts of indicators and I am also not sure why a nuke base in Moscow would be any more threatening than one of their subs or other sites.

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**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-russia/740443/3 "2015-12-14T20:22:30Z")

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Bollocks. This thread wasn’t meant to be posted. I’ve alerted the mods. Please see [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=778197) thread. Thanks.

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**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youre-potus-would-you-nuke-russia/740443/4 "2015-12-14T20:27:16Z")

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Thread closed at the request of the OP.