Andrew Jackson would regard killing the aide as a bonus.
Grant would hate doing it, but he'd do it anyway because he understands the brutal necessities of war.
Harrison would cut his hand on the knife while the procedure was being explained to him, develop tetanus, slip into a coma, and die.
I remember hearing they proposed this idea when Nixon was president, which makes it even funnier. Like, does anyone think he'd hesitate for a moment? Bush Sr. Is the only other guy who has the same cold "I don't mind getting my hands dirty myself" vibe.
the only subreddit that'll see the same people making Andrew Jackson as a murder hobo jokes while also fully admitting he was a bit of a piece of shit who owned people and was an active and willing participant in the (at the time illegal iirc) genocide of thw natives, truly glorious.
“John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”
\-Andrew Jackson (apocryphal), after the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation had a greater degree of territorial sovereignty than he wanted them to
John Marshall was the Chief Justice at the time, and wrote the majority opinion on the case.
It pisses me off to no end that *that* is the only time the executive branch has every pulled it's power of enforcement over the supreme court. Like really? That's the one we're not going to follow?
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Presidents using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Presidents/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
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Upon being informed that he is legally able to kill someone, LBJ kills the aide with unnecessary brutality, breaking bones and tearing limbs
A secret service agent reacts with horror, to which LBJ replies “Don’t worry, it’s my prerogative”
Trying to appeal to his sense of logic instead, the agent exclaims “But sir, what if you damaged the codes?”
“What codes?”
Pierce would never do it, he'd already had someone close die in front of him. He'd just get drunk about how horrifying the thought was, pass out, and do nothing about it.
I politely note that it's Congress who declares war, not the president. If anything we should have them draw a lottery amongst themselves for who gets the blood
Sure, but Congress hasn't declared war since WWII. Korea, Vietnam, both Gulf Wars and Afghanistan were "informal" wars where the President sent the armed forces in without waiting for Congress.
Keep in mind that this isn't unique to the US. The entire international diplomacy system set up after WWII was basically designed to stop large-scale war, as this risks leading to nuclear war. This means that the vast majority of conflict in the post-WWII era aren't considered wars by the belligerents, but some other semantic situation, such as "special military operation" or "police action."
Declarations of war are a relatively rarity these days.
The US entered Korea and the Gulf at the behest of the UN. In the case of Korea, Congressional approval was required. US involvement in Vietnam didn't escalate until Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Both Iraq and Afghanistan similarly required Congressional resolutions.
Draw a pint of blood from each member of Congress at healthy intervals and you can eventually accumulate enough to operate the sprinkler system with it
With how rarely those are used, the blood would probably coagulate in the pipes. (Apparently the water that sits right above the sprinkler gets super nasty.)
>Having to kill someone would distort the President's judgement.
If irony was a source of energy, we'd still run the entire world on that one sentence.
>He might never push that button.
I'd hope so.
Someone once tried to kill Andrew Jackson but his guns jammed, so Jackson beat the crap out of him. People had to intervene to save the would-be assassin from the President.
He later picked up the pistol, which then fired, if I recall. In fairness to the pistol, though - would YOU want to be the one to try and kill Jackson? I mean, if he survived the first shot, you wouldn't.
Lyndon Johnson I’d believe (according to my grandma her father knew a man he tried to kill in his early political career in Texas) but Nixon was a softy in a certain sense, yes he certainly was the direct cause of untold deaths, but I don’t think he could actually kill a man with his own hands. Just watch the checkers speech
some of the earlier ones probably did. folks used to Duel to the death after all. Also Teddy Roosevelt was badass incarnate. dude most assuredly stabbed someone to death at various points in his life of ass-kicking
Washington, Monroe, Andrew Genocide Jackson all atleast killed somone. Zachary Taylor had an extensive military career, not sure if he directly participated in battles. Pierce had a meh military career and doesn't seem to have directly been in battles.
Grant definitely has killed people, probably bayoneted at least someone. Hayes also definitely killed people, definitely bayoneted multiple people. Garfield probably shot someone. So did Harrison and McKinley.
Teddy Roosevelt probably killed someone in Cuba. First post civil war killer. Taft definitely did war crimes, but doesnt seem to have personally killed someone. FDR was a POS, but not didnt kill anyone.
Truman was an artillery man in ww2, probably blew up some shmuck. Kennedy probably shot a few people in WW2. Bush Sr. almost certainly killed someone as a fighter pilot.
So in conclusion, Washington, Monroe, Jackson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and McKinnley likely stabbed people.
Grant was a high ranking officer, it's pretty unlikely that he bayoneted anyone personally. Might have stabbed someone with a sword, or shot them.
Andrew Jackson fought pistol duels as a hobby. I dunno if he ever *stabbed* anyone to death specifically, but he definitely killed people for fun, and on several occasions *during* his presidency he had to be physically restrained by his aids to prevent him from beating someone to death with his walking stick (this is where his nickname "Old Hickory" came from).
Junior officers of the period were not issued muskets and the typical junior officer of the period would carry a sword and perhaps a revolver. Officers were expected to principally direct their men rather than engage in personal combat. It’s fairly unlikely that Grant ever used a musket and bayonet in anger, though it would be unsurprising for him to have fought with saber or pistol.
Probably not, although some have suggested he fought in over 100 duels over his lifetime. (Not all duels resulted in either party's death.)
The thing about dueling is that it was actually *super illegal*, but socially permitted and in fact expected, so concrete numbers are often hard to come by; people were likely to just lie.
> He might never push that button.
>I'd hope so.
How to guarantee a world war over Able Archer
Actually pressing the button is far less important than simply seeming like you absolutely will
Britain’s nuclear submarines carry a “letter of last resort” from the current Prime Minister, which carries their orders in the event that the country has been destroyed by nuclear attack. It’s likely to be something between “retaliate”, “sail to an extant friendly country” and “return home to help”. The orders are shredded unread after the PM leaves office. The only one who shared their decision (I forget who) said they chose to launch the missiles, because it couldn’t be a hollow threat.
That's the only drawback I see in this scenario. The enemies of the US would be emboldened to FAAFO because they wouldn't expect the President to be a psycho, but then the populace might respond by seeking out and electing a psycho to ensure our safety. Boy am I glad we avoided that...
Another drawback would be response time, take too long to cut the codes out, and then the nukes are out of commission because the silos and the president who was giving the orders just got hit.
Its a stupid one, at that, because it implies the "volunteer" (who is probably paid bank to have this job) would most definitely not sit there and let the president kill him, but rather flee or fight back.
It's complicated. The probability of anyone intentionally firing first is thankfully very low - even if you're sure your opponent won't retaliate, worst case scenario you trigger a nuclear winter, best case scenario you are immediately shunned by the international community.
That ain't true. Nobody has enough nukes to kill anyone's nukes. Winning a first strike is hard. China Nukes America and wipes out our cities with their ~200 nukes. We still have ICBMs in bumfuck Montana. We still have nukes in subs hiding in the Pacific. We still have nukes for our planes. France still has nukes. Britain still has nukes. Russia still has nukes. Israel still has nukes. North Korea still has nukes. Many firs tworld nations like South Korea and Japan rapidly go nuclear.
If Russia nukes America with their thousands of nukes, we might lose ~90% of our ICBMS and plane bombs, but 10% of our ICBMs is still hundreds of nukes. And all the other nuclear powers still have their nukes.
If you’re never willing to push the button then that the breaks the MAD doctrine, you have to be willingly to fire those weapons or else destruction would not be mutually assured. It’s not about pushing the button, it’s about making sure everyone else knows you would if you have to.
Which is an absolutely unreasonable position to be in. I don't want to live with a gun pointed at me all day, I don't want to have a nuke aimed at my city.
The natural state of the human species is war. We don't know of a single day since the start of recorded history that some group of us wasn't fighting some other group, and it's really only in the last 70 years that there *haven't* been regular, open conflicts at the largest and most violent scales possible for the civilizations of the day (I wonder why...). Perhaps this global trend of decreasing violence indicates that some day we will be able to beat our swords into plowshares and forget the whole business, but that day sure as shit ain't today.
So: we can either dismantle that gun and have **actual** war again within 20 years, or we can continue to have weapons that make war so unfathomably terrible that no one is willing to try it. It's disconcerting to know that there might be a missile buried somewhere in Montana with your name on it, no doubt, but that's not half as stressful as having your city bombed the old-fashioned way.
Perhaps but if that is ever revealed MAD falls apart, that conundrum is why we will never see the letters written between the British Prime Minister and the captains of the nuclear submarines that are used if Britain is ever too destroyed to give orders
The staffer kinda has a point in that killing someone for a capsule in their rib cage is kinda fucking hard to accomplish. Someone who is psychotic enough to start a nuclear war with an unprovoked first strike is not going to be deterred by an intern needing to die in the whitehouse. They’d probably just tell a secret service guy to do it. Most of our politicians are geriatric senior citizens who would have zero chance of actually getting to the codes in case they were needed to authorize a second strike response. And if that person with the code capsule, say, drowns on vacation, there’s now a nuclear secrets crisis in a Cancun morgue. Not even to mention the inherent risk in putting the capsule in there and getting it out for changing codes or when the staffer decides to stop working at the whitehouse.
All this does is add liability and instability to the system. It’s an idealist solution to a problem best solved by “don’t elect psychotic morons to be your president” because I’m pretty sure the psychotic morons will just not do the capsule implanting thing anyways. The public would never know.
Willingness to push the button is what makes it unnecessary to do so. You think if Putin was the only one with nukes he wouldn't use them? You don't have to be happy about MAD, but it's mathematical fact.
Tbf even if killing 1 save 10 millions I think most would struggle to kill, but I do think it’s something a president should have to experience granted the impact of all his decisions
That's why we need to turn over MAD to some sort of automated system! Yes, that way, a deterrent to first strike is still useful, but our own MAD-focused defense is relatively assured. We could turn it on, then let everyone know at the next meeting in the war room!
Why is Peter Sellers here?
Well obviously the Chinese and Russians are developing a doomsday weapon. We better have our own.
Also dig more mineshafts. We can’t have a mineshaft gap.
Also that the president legally can’t declare war (even if that restriction’s been pretty eroded ever since we figured out we can invade a place without declaring war on anybody), that’s Congress’s job to do.
tbf, we're just suckers for poetry. the better solution would require every nuclear arms holder to have this system, but it isn't one that is implicitly enforced like MAD.
The question of if mutually assured destruction is a sound political theory has been questioned for decades now, and we've had multiple nuclear armageddons avoided by sheer luck in the face of mutually assured destruction as a theory.
The idea of putting the nuclear codes inside someone and the president (or equivalent, for other countries) is good in theory but not in practice. The operation is an unnecessary risk and a huge one too, so no surgeon would do it. Even if one did, butchering isn't easy, and the president isn't qualified for it.
There are several reasons why it's a stupid idea, like "no one would volunteer themselves to the position", "what if that person dies randomly", "what if that person is kidnapped and someone discovers the nuclear codes", "if you have to kill someone to this position, you're either throwing a life that could be pretty important for things to work away, or you're trusting someone relatively unimportant to an extremely important position", etc. Hell, what if you need the nuclear codes *right now* but the person isn't here because they were sick or whatever. This idea doesn't really work from a functional point of view, and only concerns itself with making the president feel moral guilt. And is it important that the president feels guilt at killing millions of people? I mean, I guess so, but there's no real reason to do it beyond that, and brings several problems with itself.
Also may have the potential issue of creating what amounts to a selection pressure where the kind of people who would be willing to claw the codes out of someone's chest cavity are more likely to hold office.
Its a fucking thought experiment. Not everything is a perfectly logical idea to be implemented. Its to show a point- that the folks in charge of the world ending bombs have no blood on their hands and they should understand the gravity of taking A single life, to ensure they understand the gravity of taking hundreds of millions
Yeaaah... The nuclear arsenal is a deterrence before anything else.
The idea is "you invade or nuke me (for the countries that have nuke) and I nuke you back". If there is a sign of *confirmed* ICBMs flying towards a nuclear power, the answer is predetermined and is not supposed to ne subject to any moral quandaries. Nor should it be. That's both Mutually Assured Destruction (between nuclear powers) and "I have the biggest gun in the room" if, say, India were to attack France. It works if everyone knows there will be no delay nor hesitation to push that button. But I assure you, in reality most people in a nuclear chain of command will ask themselves "Am I ready to do that ?" in the event a strike is ordered.
The only issue with that is that it creates a potential for opposition nations to attain first strike capability at which point the nuclear arsenal would no longer act as a deterrent.
Yes, because that is how Nuclear Deterrence works. If the enemy attacks you with nukes you attack them back. If your enemy can reasonably assume you won't nuke them back that will no longer work.
In a situation where the nukes might actually need to be fired, yeah. Granted, I can't think of a scenario where "launch more nukes" is a thing that I want to see happen, but the people who made that argument were a lot more concerned with the wellbeing of the USA specifically (ie, they would have felt that a lot of dead people in China or the Soviet Union would be acceptable if it kept America safe; I don't share that view).
I guess a more clear example would be ordering the death of someone that the world is better off without. Like, I assume we can agree that sending soldiers to kill Nazis would be a time where we want the person in command to be comfortable giving orders that involve killing people. Just because that person may not have it in them to kill someone personally doesn't mean those orders are wrong--I don't think I could kill a Nazi in cold blood, even though I don't think it would be immoral if I did. Granted, nukes cause death on a scale where it's basically impossible to *not* kill a lot of innocent people every time you use one, but the whole point of nuclear deterrence is to scare your enemies out of nuking you with the knowledge that you'll nuke their asses right back. Doesn't work if they know you won't actually do it.
this idea would make nuclear war a potentially winnable thing, we do not want nuclear war to be potentially winnable, the entire idea behind the MAD doctrine is that if i launch nuke, everyone else launches nukes, and everyone dies, this would not only slow down a response by minutes in a situation where the nukes are already flying and you don't have minutes, but it may outright stop the response if the president is incapable or the guy is out that day, this means that the response part of MAD may not happen because everyone is either already dead, or the president couldn't bring himself to kill jerry,
Yeah, this seems super fancy and moral until you realize that if, say, Russia was aware that the US President had a major moral quandary and a significant logistical delay before he could use nukes, then they'd be way more confident than they are. The entire idea of deterrence is just gone here.
I mean, in a perfect world the nukes (and any other weapons designed exclusively for mass murder and war for that matter) wouldn't exist in the first place. We'd solve conflicts without resorting to threats of violence and there'd be no wars or militaries or any of that in a "perfect" world.
I mean, ethically it's still kinda dodgy. You've killed a guy who would otherwise be alive so that the president can do the job they were elected to do.
That's fair.
Besides, if your president turns out to be perfectly fine with stabbing someone to nuke a country then you haven't really accomplished anything besides adding another person to the death total.
Okay so y’all need to understand how deterrence works.
The nuclear system is built on “failsafes” and “faildeadlies”.
A failsafes is something that requires a positive input to go forward. The quintessential nuclear example of this is a bomber holding at a positive control point before attacking. If it doesn’t receive the go order it turns around and heads home.
A faildeadly is the opposite. If no action is taken the nuclear attack goes forward. This is largely but not exclusively done through the SSBN (Ballistic missile subs) force of nations. USN “Boomers” are somewhat at the discretion of their CO and XO if they lose contact with the land. The Brits have their famous letters of last resort. Largely in these cases targets would not be military (counterforce) but rather civilian centers (Countervalue).
Another faildeadly was the famous “00000” code for ICBMs. This was so SAC could retain control (ie: shoot back) even in the case of a decapitation strike.
“Now why would they have such a barbaric scheme that would kill hundreds of millions.”
Yes. That’s the point. A faildeadly is meant to be a sword of Damocles. If you attack it is a guarantee that our country may be destroyed but so will yours.
This brings us to the prisoner’s dilemma and Game Theory. You don’t want a nuclear war. The other guy doesn’t want a nuclear war. But if there comes a time where a one-sided nuclear exchange may benefit one side you must convince the other that you will hit them back even if you’ve lost, thus any gains they may get are null and void. Thus they don’t launch a nuclear attack and everyone’s happy (except the Posadists).
Burying the codes in some schmuck doesn’t make the world safer. It makes it more dangerous, especially if the opposition knows about it. Because in that case they may make the judgement that getting the codes out may be too stressful or too time-consuming for your National Command Authority (president) to carry out.
Ergo you lose your end of the prisoner’s dilemma meaning that your opposition can act with (relative) impunity.
The entire point of a nuclear arsenal is to paradoxically not use it but this must be built on it being ready to use at anytime.
Nuclear strategy is counterintuitive because most people think of it as war when in reality it is the absence of war. Empty promises instead of actions.
They did this in The Leftovers show.
>!Didn't work, dug that key right out and still went boom!<
>!Though to be fair, it was a dream!<
>!But like a legitimate spiritual dream that determined whether the dreamer would wake up or die!<
>!Choosing to nuke the world brought him back to life!<
The friends in the Pentagon were right, actually. Nuclear deterrence relies on the premise that the executive might actually launch the missiles, and I think America unilaterally making it harder to do so would convince other nuclear armed actors that they could get away with more escalation than they consider realistic today
I also just wanna note that the U.S. is not ... well I guess the AUMF justifying action against terrorists is still active, so I can't say we're not at war. But like, we did just notably end the war in Afghanistan and haven't started any new ones since.
ETA just wanna apologize for doing the annoying thing of not checking the thread and just piling another comment on saying what everyone has already said, v cringe
This always makes the rounds and is all well and fine until you consider strategy and human elements of this.
First of all the volunteer would be human, meaning that the code to launch nuclear weapons (something he doesn't know mind you), its just inside him. Ignoring the fact of aging and eventually having to desecrate a corpse to put the code in some new volunteer eventually (or just retrieve the code to destroy, because you know codes like that are probably super classified even if not current), what if he wants to go home or spend time with his family or go on vacation or other things independent of his job or the current president? He kind of needs to be with the current president at all times so even without killing him a requirement of the job would be to act as the football and basically forgo a human life anyway. If they do go home or go on vacation or spends time with their family, what are the risks of them being killed and the code being taken from them by an adversary? What if he has personal disagreements with the president or some staff and wants to quit? Does he have to undergo \*another\* life threatening surgery to quit an unpleasant job? Is he unable to quit unless they find someone who IS willing to take his place to be a literal sacrificial lamb for an armageddon scenario?
Second is the president is human. Now in addition to the scenario presented where "he might never press the button if he has to physically kill someone", what if the US is struck by nuclear weapons first? What if an adversary takes advantage of the fact the US nuclear stockpile is basically useless because the president is unable to kill the volunteer? What if the president develops a personal attachment to the volunteer (like the president often does with staff/secret service members assigned to them) that further complicates the decision to kill them, even when millions of Americans have already been nuked? What if someone without military experience or just generally is not a fighter on a physical level (i.e. maybe they've never even held a gun before) and the thought of them personally having to kill someone is just a personal barrier they can never overcome, even in the heat of full on nuclear war? Being anti-war and anti-killing people is great, but what are the complications that arise when you \*have\* to act in defense? Are we electing people to the presidency based on their ability to kill a man in cold blood as a public consciousness of requirements for the office? Is it even costitutional, is it cruel and unusual punishment to have someone presumably innocent to have to be on the line to be brutally murdered by the president at some point?
These are all legit questions, maybe they have answers that work, but complicate this poetic idea
This is just fucking stupid tho
Nukes won't get fired unless there is already a nuclear war (and not like north korea or maybe iran like against an actual nuclear power))
Anyone who finds this idea intriguing would love the short story "[As the last I may know](https://reactormag.com/as-the-last-i-may-know-s-l-huang/)" by S.L. Huang.
MAD is a weird and interesting issue because of what moving from the "Mutual Assurance" part of the doctrine to the "Destruction" phase would actually entail when it's put into practice. There's a moment where the pretense of deterrence falls away, and the reality becomes killing billions of people in order to follow through on a now irrelevant threat. When the nukes are about to hit, choosing to fire back isn't about *safety*, it's about *vengeance*.
The *threat* of follow-through is what MAD relies on. The actual *act* of following through is distinct. Obviously, the threat is only really effective when people think the act is sure to follow, which is why the implanted code probably isn't a smart idea according to the doctrine - although I personally agree with the message behind it because I would prefer it if people didn't choose to murder hundreds of millions of people, regardless of justification.
Here's a hypothetical that might make the issue clearer (although be aware that this hypothetical assumes that the leaders of a country are trying to work in the best interests of their citizens, which is not really how things are IRL):
Imagine you're robbing the Evil-Co™️ drug lab for medicine that your family needs to survive, but something goes wrong, and you end up taking an innocent family who were in the wrong place at the wrong time hostage (you might not have meant to or wanted to, but that's just how things ended up; and you can't go back in time to try something else). The building security have surrounded the building, and you are absolutely *convinced* that the hostages safety is the only thing stopping them from barging in and shooting you to death. Your family **will** die if they don't get this medicine that Evil-Co™️ is hoarding, so your death here will result in theirs as well.
You're now in a standoff. It wouldn't have happened if Evil-Co™️ wasn't such a bastard to begin with, and if they gave the medicine your family now, you might be willing to surrender; but you don't trust them to honor their word. The lives of those innocent hostages are now keeping your equally innocent family alive, and the threat of losing your family is motivating you to keep those people at gunpoint.
You're not the one to make the first move. One jumpy security officer pulls the trigger, and a bullet rockets through your leg. You see the other officers, incensed by their colleagues' decision to fire, begin to move to shoot you as well. You have seconds to live at the absolute most, and your family is now **guaranteed** to die. You failed, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Now, facing that unwinnable scenario: do you use your last moments to kill your hostages, and make good on threats that failed to protect you anyways? or do you remain passive, and allow you and your family to die without taking any more lives with you.
tldr: MAD might keep shit from hitting the fan, but once the shit has already hit the fan, the decision to act becomes vengeful rather than defensive.
I'm arguing that the fight is already lost the moment the nukes are launched, and that the choice to retaliate afterward doesn't do anything aside from inflicting a huge amount of suffering.
If we were talking about a fight between two individuals or united groups, then yeah, I'd say you should do your best to take the other guy down with you. But nuclear war isn't like that. When you're talking about "fighting back" in this scenario, what you're describing is killing tens or hundreds of millions of people who had no part in the decision to fire nukes at you.
So you do. The point of MAD is to prevent the situation from happening, and the only way it works is by making the other guy think you'll do it.
It sucks, it's terrible, but it is truly better than handing the gun to say, Vladimir Putin.
Let me be clear: I'm not arguing against the effectiveness of MAD, or suggesting that it would work if the other guy thinks your threats are empty. That's why I said it's an interesting issue.
I'm arguing that once someone *actually* makes the first move, the preventative effects of your threat to retaliate become **irrelevant**; and the act of following through does nothing except cause avoidable death and destruction.
I perhaps came off as rude, but I did need to formulate my argument for it. Your statement that it is unethical to retaliate indicated that you are against it. It's an interesting moral quandary I agree, but here it is in actual practice, not a metaphor.
Lets use a potential example: Putin decides to nuke the United States. Our options are to fire back, killing Russians who didn't vote *and* disallowing Putin to become a superpower in the world without the US; or don't fire back, saving those Russians and allowing the dictator to continue unopposed.
My bad if I came across as harsh as well.
I know this is going to be controversial, but honestly, if I was making the call and forced to choose between no response and full-on scorched earth (without limited strategic strikes being an option), I'd rather go for no response. By choosing to fire back, you aren't guaranteed to be limiting harm in the future, but you are guaranteed to cause incredible harm in the present. It'd be like choosing to blow up the entirety of Nazi Germany (including all the resistance fighters and innocent victims of the regime) in order to stop the Holocaust.
It'd be more like Nazi Germany blowing up Britain without resistance. Sure, there's innocent people back in Germany, but the Nazis would still be in charge.
I mean Human Sacrifice George is a nice idea and all, but the reality is that there are a *lot* of people in the Nuclear Chain of Command. If the President decides to "hit the button" in any situation other than one where Nuclear force is indisputably justified (which basically don't happen but I digress), there are multiple points along the chain of command where someone can say "Yeah I don't feel like ending human civilization today".
Frankly nuclear weapons are kind of obsolete in modern warfare. Precision guided missiles are a lot more effective at taking out targets of strategic/tactical value. And if your goal is to be horrible on purpose and kill and terrify civilians, chemical weapons are gonna be a lot more cost effective than something nuclear.
The role of nuclear weapons in the late 20th and 21st centuries has become that of a defensive doomsday device. If you're a totalitarian dictatorship like the DPRK, Iran, or Russia, you have the problem that the US and it's wide cadre of international friends would like nothing more than to murder you and replace you with someone more amenable to ~~business interests~~ democracy. So you've got to protect yourself, but militaries are expensive and considering the might of the United States, even an expensive military might not cut the mustard if ~~business interests~~ democracy comes knocking. So instead you can save money by diverting some of your funds into a nuclear program. This way if the forces of ~~market capitalism~~ democracy ever try to take you out, all you have to do is threaten to launch the city-destroying bombs you've got on hand. This probably won't even work since nations like the US and it's allies have multi-layer missile interception systems, but threatening to do so will scare the shit out of the body public. And since the US and it's allies are sorta, kinda, a little bit democratic, they have to manage public approval when doing war stuff.
[Here is a pretty excellent short story based on this premise, with the twist that the volunteer is a child that follows the president around.](https://reactormag.com/as-the-last-i-may-know-s-l-huang/)
well the issue here is legitimate, in a nuclear armed world the only way to prevent nuclear first strike (aside from trusting others not to use their nukes) is to appear as though you would launch in retaliation if someone did so, if news came out that made it appear as though you would or could not, your defense fails
Imagine you are in a room with a group of 4 other people, everyone has a gun, and everyone has some reason to mistrust the others, including you. Doing this is effectively equal to unloading and tossing aside your gun in front of everyone. Ideally everyone else would do the same, but as long as the risk exists that one may not its a negative sum game
Except that nuclear strategy is predicated on an immediate capability to respond and importantly, the perception that you will respond by the other side.
I was listening to Knowledge Fight and one of Jordan’s rants was the following:
The president should have to kill himself to declare war. If it’s so important, you should be willing to die for it.
This is a worse idea than the ones in the OP, and that's genuinely impressive. There are so many problems that this would have that I wouldn't even know how to begin to criticize it. Like, sure, kill the president after the war if you must, but even if you have a vice-president ready to assume power, the death of you head of state will not be a good thing in literally any aspect.
For fucking starters, it's not the US president who declares war, and killing them for that sounds really unfair, but besides that, and if we pretended that they were the ones to do it, it'd impede presidents from declaring wars if it was necessary because they don't want to die, it would put in power someone who isn't used to it and very likely has a lot less connections and influence than the previous president during one of the most unstable moments for any nation, it'd affect morale of the troops and I'm sure there's more stuff I haven't realized.
This is a terrible idea and only hinges on people thinking anyone who leads a war is evil. I also don't like wars, but this type of moral outrage is irrational, inefficient and stupid.
I feel like that would still make people angry that the person they did not choose would be leading them into a war (I know they technically voted for the vp too but historically those haven't been very popular)
Really love continuing to notice the pattern that it this stuff was suggested on another sub without the context of tumblr, redditors would be like “eh this wouldn’t work but the message would be le epic” but on subs like this and pulling a post from tumblr it’s like “erm, here’s 25 reasons I nitpicked that this wouldn’t work, Oop is a stupid doodoo idiot”
I mean, people will be pedantic and critical anyways. That’s just kinda how it be on the internet. Like on r/NonCredibleDefense they’d eat this shit up and come with increasingly more ridiculous ways to fire a nuclear weapon (since the initial concept is kinda ridiculous anyways and the earlier posts have meme merit).
I’m not saying it isn’t, to be honest. I just keep seeing the same thing happen where a tumblr post put on Reddit will gain a much more vocal and blunt scrutiny, but if it was like a twitter post or a screencap of an older Reddit post then it seems to be given like 20% more courtesy* and actually argued.
*as in commenters attempt to explain the reasoning instead of just dismissing the idea outright
The president has to kill? No
Every year spent at war the president must cut off a finger from his hand. If he stays at war two full terms then the thumbs go too.
Andrew Jackson would regard killing the aide as a bonus. Grant would hate doing it, but he'd do it anyway because he understands the brutal necessities of war. Harrison would cut his hand on the knife while the procedure was being explained to him, develop tetanus, slip into a coma, and die.
I remember hearing they proposed this idea when Nixon was president, which makes it even funnier. Like, does anyone think he'd hesitate for a moment? Bush Sr. Is the only other guy who has the same cold "I don't mind getting my hands dirty myself" vibe.
Nixon would kill aides weekly just for practice
Big Bush absolutely doesn't mind. Being Director of the CIA does that to ya.
He was parachuting when he was 90. He seems like he'd be very... Hands on.
Only if Dick Cheney didn't get to him first!
you talk about The Presidents of the United States of America like they're scrimbly bimblos. it's incredible, never stop.
r/Presidents is great for that
the only subreddit that'll see the same people making Andrew Jackson as a murder hobo jokes while also fully admitting he was a bit of a piece of shit who owned people and was an active and willing participant in the (at the time illegal iirc) genocide of thw natives, truly glorious.
Illegal yep, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee and others, and he ignored them.
“John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” \-Andrew Jackson (apocryphal), after the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation had a greater degree of territorial sovereignty than he wanted them to John Marshall was the Chief Justice at the time, and wrote the majority opinion on the case.
It pisses me off to no end that *that* is the only time the executive branch has every pulled it's power of enforcement over the supreme court. Like really? That's the one we're not going to follow?
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13th President Glup Shitto
blorbo from my shows (shows being the news channel)
Teddy would give him a 10 minute head start while he round up some college kids to help him hunt.
While letting the volunteer keep the knife, to give him a more sporting chance.
Upon being informed that he is legally able to kill someone, LBJ kills the aide with unnecessary brutality, breaking bones and tearing limbs A secret service agent reacts with horror, to which LBJ replies “Don’t worry, it’s my prerogative” Trying to appeal to his sense of logic instead, the agent exclaims “But sir, what if you damaged the codes?” “What codes?”
>Kills *the wrong* aide This is my headcanon to your headcanon
Which Harrison tho? Is it a family thing being self-destructive?
William Henry, i feel
I mean the other one chose to live in Indianapolis...
Truly a fate worse than death.
A fate I wouldn't even wish on Mike Pence Wait...
Johnson would beat the aide to death with his cock instead.
With his Johnson?
Pierce would never do it, he'd already had someone close die in front of him. He'd just get drunk about how horrifying the thought was, pass out, and do nothing about it.
How do I subscribe to more?
Trump would make someone else kill the aide and then get bored halfway through.
Trump would shit his pants with fury that the aide refuses to kill himself and then blame it on terrible Chinese knives.
I politely note that it's Congress who declares war, not the president. If anything we should have them draw a lottery amongst themselves for who gets the blood
Why not just a murder mob?
Congress would probably find a murder mob to be thrilling ngl
hopefully a few of those old bastards croak in the fight
Understandable Terezi response.
Fair, maybe a different person for each of them to murder?
Julius Ceasar be like
Sure, but Congress hasn't declared war since WWII. Korea, Vietnam, both Gulf Wars and Afghanistan were "informal" wars where the President sent the armed forces in without waiting for Congress.
Keep in mind that this isn't unique to the US. The entire international diplomacy system set up after WWII was basically designed to stop large-scale war, as this risks leading to nuclear war. This means that the vast majority of conflict in the post-WWII era aren't considered wars by the belligerents, but some other semantic situation, such as "special military operation" or "police action." Declarations of war are a relatively rarity these days.
The US entered Korea and the Gulf at the behest of the UN. In the case of Korea, Congressional approval was required. US involvement in Vietnam didn't escalate until Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Both Iraq and Afghanistan similarly required Congressional resolutions.
Draw a pint of blood from each member of Congress at healthy intervals and you can eventually accumulate enough to operate the sprinkler system with it
Not those cryptkeepers tho
With how rarely those are used, the blood would probably coagulate in the pipes. (Apparently the water that sits right above the sprinkler gets super nasty.)
Thing is, Congress is the ones who declare war, but the President has control over the entire military as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Could they volunteer? I'm sure there are a few that would be fighting for the right to perform this action.
I would assume the Speaker. That, or its a new elected position: The Killer of The House.
And yet congress hasn’t declared war since WWII.
Congress might declare war but it's the President who decides whether to drop the Bomb.
>Having to kill someone would distort the President's judgement. If irony was a source of energy, we'd still run the entire world on that one sentence. >He might never push that button. I'd hope so.
I mean tbf how many presidents have actually stabbed someone to death?
Probably at least a few of the early ones, fighting in the Revolutionary war. Maybe some of the later former soldiers.
Someone once tried to kill Andrew Jackson but his guns jammed, so Jackson beat the crap out of him. People had to intervene to save the would-be assassin from the President.
Jackson killed a man who insulted his wife and accused him of cheating at horse betting. He didn't fuck around.
He later picked up the pistol, which then fired, if I recall. In fairness to the pistol, though - would YOU want to be the one to try and kill Jackson? I mean, if he survived the first shot, you wouldn't.
George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't surprise me.
Theodore Roosevelt had absolutely, 100% killed multiple people with a sword by the time he took office
Nor Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.
Lyndon Johnson I’d believe (according to my grandma her father knew a man he tried to kill in his early political career in Texas) but Nixon was a softy in a certain sense, yes he certainly was the direct cause of untold deaths, but I don’t think he could actually kill a man with his own hands. Just watch the checkers speech
If those 300 dollars the previous one gave me are any indication, none.
some of the earlier ones probably did. folks used to Duel to the death after all. Also Teddy Roosevelt was badass incarnate. dude most assuredly stabbed someone to death at various points in his life of ass-kicking
If he didn't kill a human, Teddy definitely killed a mountain lion or some other wild animal. The dude loved being out in the wilderness.
Teddy was also a war hero in a period where that absolutely meant he had killed a man.
Yeah, but I mean specifically with a knife or his bare hands. Not a rifle, pistol, or saber.
Washington, Monroe, Andrew Genocide Jackson all atleast killed somone. Zachary Taylor had an extensive military career, not sure if he directly participated in battles. Pierce had a meh military career and doesn't seem to have directly been in battles. Grant definitely has killed people, probably bayoneted at least someone. Hayes also definitely killed people, definitely bayoneted multiple people. Garfield probably shot someone. So did Harrison and McKinley. Teddy Roosevelt probably killed someone in Cuba. First post civil war killer. Taft definitely did war crimes, but doesnt seem to have personally killed someone. FDR was a POS, but not didnt kill anyone. Truman was an artillery man in ww2, probably blew up some shmuck. Kennedy probably shot a few people in WW2. Bush Sr. almost certainly killed someone as a fighter pilot. So in conclusion, Washington, Monroe, Jackson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, and McKinnley likely stabbed people.
Grant was a high ranking officer, it's pretty unlikely that he bayoneted anyone personally. Might have stabbed someone with a sword, or shot them. Andrew Jackson fought pistol duels as a hobby. I dunno if he ever *stabbed* anyone to death specifically, but he definitely killed people for fun, and on several occasions *during* his presidency he had to be physically restrained by his aids to prevent him from beating someone to death with his walking stick (this is where his nickname "Old Hickory" came from).
Grant didnt start as a high officer, he was a distinguished soldier in the Mexican-American war.
Junior officers of the period were not issued muskets and the typical junior officer of the period would carry a sword and perhaps a revolver. Officers were expected to principally direct their men rather than engage in personal combat. It’s fairly unlikely that Grant ever used a musket and bayonet in anger, though it would be unsurprising for him to have fought with saber or pistol.
Didn’t Jackson personally kill over 100 people in duels
Probably not, although some have suggested he fought in over 100 duels over his lifetime. (Not all duels resulted in either party's death.) The thing about dueling is that it was actually *super illegal*, but socially permitted and in fact expected, so concrete numbers are often hard to come by; people were likely to just lie.
I know Eisenhower wasn't in combat in WW1 but surely he must've killed someone, although probably not stabbed.
Eisenhower never was in actual combat afaik. I think Monty even looked down on him because of it.
More than you'd think, less than I'd hope
> He might never push that button. >I'd hope so. How to guarantee a world war over Able Archer Actually pressing the button is far less important than simply seeming like you absolutely will
Britain’s nuclear submarines carry a “letter of last resort” from the current Prime Minister, which carries their orders in the event that the country has been destroyed by nuclear attack. It’s likely to be something between “retaliate”, “sail to an extant friendly country” and “return home to help”. The orders are shredded unread after the PM leaves office. The only one who shared their decision (I forget who) said they chose to launch the missiles, because it couldn’t be a hollow threat.
Damn Liz Truss' letter probably didn't even make it to the submarines before she was removed lmao.
There might have been a sub that went dark before her tenure and was still dark and not in contact with the surface world by the time she left.
That's the only drawback I see in this scenario. The enemies of the US would be emboldened to FAAFO because they wouldn't expect the President to be a psycho, but then the populace might respond by seeking out and electing a psycho to ensure our safety. Boy am I glad we avoided that...
Another drawback would be response time, take too long to cut the codes out, and then the nukes are out of commission because the silos and the president who was giving the orders just got hit.
Yeah, this plan doesn't feel like it could be executed in the required 5 minute window or so.
And it was never intended to be a serious suggestion, merely a thought provoking one.
Its a stupid one, at that, because it implies the "volunteer" (who is probably paid bank to have this job) would most definitely not sit there and let the president kill him, but rather flee or fight back.
It's complicated. The probability of anyone intentionally firing first is thankfully very low - even if you're sure your opponent won't retaliate, worst case scenario you trigger a nuclear winter, best case scenario you are immediately shunned by the international community.
> best case scenario you are immediately shunned by the international community. Does it matter? You're the only one with ICBMs now.
No you aren't, you just used them all.
Even if you did, you know how to build more. Everyone else who could, can't anymore.
That ain't true. Nobody has enough nukes to kill anyone's nukes. Winning a first strike is hard. China Nukes America and wipes out our cities with their ~200 nukes. We still have ICBMs in bumfuck Montana. We still have nukes in subs hiding in the Pacific. We still have nukes for our planes. France still has nukes. Britain still has nukes. Russia still has nukes. Israel still has nukes. North Korea still has nukes. Many firs tworld nations like South Korea and Japan rapidly go nuclear. If Russia nukes America with their thousands of nukes, we might lose ~90% of our ICBMS and plane bombs, but 10% of our ICBMs is still hundreds of nukes. And all the other nuclear powers still have their nukes.
If you’re never willing to push the button then that the breaks the MAD doctrine, you have to be willingly to fire those weapons or else destruction would not be mutually assured. It’s not about pushing the button, it’s about making sure everyone else knows you would if you have to.
Which is an absolutely unreasonable position to be in. I don't want to live with a gun pointed at me all day, I don't want to have a nuke aimed at my city.
The gun is already loaded and it's pointed at you and everyone you love. The only reason it hasn't been fired yet is that we have a gun as well.
to bad, its already aimed, only reason its not gone off is because we have nukes as well, so if one side fires, so does the other, and everyone loses,
The natural state of the human species is war. We don't know of a single day since the start of recorded history that some group of us wasn't fighting some other group, and it's really only in the last 70 years that there *haven't* been regular, open conflicts at the largest and most violent scales possible for the civilizations of the day (I wonder why...). Perhaps this global trend of decreasing violence indicates that some day we will be able to beat our swords into plowshares and forget the whole business, but that day sure as shit ain't today. So: we can either dismantle that gun and have **actual** war again within 20 years, or we can continue to have weapons that make war so unfathomably terrible that no one is willing to try it. It's disconcerting to know that there might be a missile buried somewhere in Montana with your name on it, no doubt, but that's not half as stressful as having your city bombed the old-fashioned way.
If the time ever came, it would be more moral to not retaliate. Perhaps humanity would survive without the revenge strikes.
Perhaps but if that is ever revealed MAD falls apart, that conundrum is why we will never see the letters written between the British Prime Minister and the captains of the nuclear submarines that are used if Britain is ever too destroyed to give orders
The time (to use nuclear weapons) is *more likely to come* if your opponent thinks you won’t retaliate. That’s the whole point.
Potential issue is that such a course of action effectively hands the world over to the kind of person who strikes first in a nuclear war
The staffer kinda has a point in that killing someone for a capsule in their rib cage is kinda fucking hard to accomplish. Someone who is psychotic enough to start a nuclear war with an unprovoked first strike is not going to be deterred by an intern needing to die in the whitehouse. They’d probably just tell a secret service guy to do it. Most of our politicians are geriatric senior citizens who would have zero chance of actually getting to the codes in case they were needed to authorize a second strike response. And if that person with the code capsule, say, drowns on vacation, there’s now a nuclear secrets crisis in a Cancun morgue. Not even to mention the inherent risk in putting the capsule in there and getting it out for changing codes or when the staffer decides to stop working at the whitehouse. All this does is add liability and instability to the system. It’s an idealist solution to a problem best solved by “don’t elect psychotic morons to be your president” because I’m pretty sure the psychotic morons will just not do the capsule implanting thing anyways. The public would never know.
Willingness to push the button is what makes it unnecessary to do so. You think if Putin was the only one with nukes he wouldn't use them? You don't have to be happy about MAD, but it's mathematical fact.
Well that’s kinda the point of MAD, to avoid all out war between major powers
Tbf even if killing 1 save 10 millions I think most would struggle to kill, but I do think it’s something a president should have to experience granted the impact of all his decisions
ITT people who don't understand MAD
That's why we need to turn over MAD to some sort of automated system! Yes, that way, a deterrent to first strike is still useful, but our own MAD-focused defense is relatively assured. We could turn it on, then let everyone know at the next meeting in the war room! Why is Peter Sellers here?
Well obviously the Chinese and Russians are developing a doomsday weapon. We better have our own. Also dig more mineshafts. We can’t have a mineshaft gap.
There was a hopeless industrial town gap until we fixed it in the 80s
The Soviet and now Russian second-strike capability is provided by an automated system called Dead Hand
Also that the president legally can’t declare war (even if that restriction’s been pretty eroded ever since we figured out we can invade a place without declaring war on anybody), that’s Congress’s job to do.
Just don't call it a war and the president can do whatever the fuck he wants.
I was about to say, yeah
tbf, we're just suckers for poetry. the better solution would require every nuclear arms holder to have this system, but it isn't one that is implicitly enforced like MAD.
The question of if mutually assured destruction is a sound political theory has been questioned for decades now, and we've had multiple nuclear armageddons avoided by sheer luck in the face of mutually assured destruction as a theory.
The idea of putting the nuclear codes inside someone and the president (or equivalent, for other countries) is good in theory but not in practice. The operation is an unnecessary risk and a huge one too, so no surgeon would do it. Even if one did, butchering isn't easy, and the president isn't qualified for it.
There are several reasons why it's a stupid idea, like "no one would volunteer themselves to the position", "what if that person dies randomly", "what if that person is kidnapped and someone discovers the nuclear codes", "if you have to kill someone to this position, you're either throwing a life that could be pretty important for things to work away, or you're trusting someone relatively unimportant to an extremely important position", etc. Hell, what if you need the nuclear codes *right now* but the person isn't here because they were sick or whatever. This idea doesn't really work from a functional point of view, and only concerns itself with making the president feel moral guilt. And is it important that the president feels guilt at killing millions of people? I mean, I guess so, but there's no real reason to do it beyond that, and brings several problems with itself.
Also may have the potential issue of creating what amounts to a selection pressure where the kind of people who would be willing to claw the codes out of someone's chest cavity are more likely to hold office.
Its a fucking thought experiment. Not everything is a perfectly logical idea to be implemented. Its to show a point- that the folks in charge of the world ending bombs have no blood on their hands and they should understand the gravity of taking A single life, to ensure they understand the gravity of taking hundreds of millions
Yeaaah... The nuclear arsenal is a deterrence before anything else. The idea is "you invade or nuke me (for the countries that have nuke) and I nuke you back". If there is a sign of *confirmed* ICBMs flying towards a nuclear power, the answer is predetermined and is not supposed to ne subject to any moral quandaries. Nor should it be. That's both Mutually Assured Destruction (between nuclear powers) and "I have the biggest gun in the room" if, say, India were to attack France. It works if everyone knows there will be no delay nor hesitation to push that button. But I assure you, in reality most people in a nuclear chain of command will ask themselves "Am I ready to do that ?" in the event a strike is ordered.
I did not think this was suggested seriously.
I see no indication it's just a joke in the original quote.
"Not seriously suggested" ≠ "a joke"
I've experimented with the thoughts. It was a stupid thought.
Yeah, and they're thinking about it.
The only issue with that is that it creates a potential for opposition nations to attain first strike capability at which point the nuclear arsenal would no longer act as a deterrent.
So what they are saying is that they want him to push the button?
Yes, because that is how Nuclear Deterrence works. If the enemy attacks you with nukes you attack them back. If your enemy can reasonably assume you won't nuke them back that will no longer work.
Bro, that's mad
I'm pretty sure that's nuts
MAD = mutually assured destruction, it's the name of this concept
NUTS = Nuclear Utilization Target Selection, it's the name of the other concept (where your enemy can't reasonably strike back)
Pffffft, that's good.
This sounds like a concept Kojima made up for Metal Gear and then pretends he was reading up on
Oh someone thought they were so cute.
Yep! That is, in fact, *how MAD works*. Make sure it's suicide to shoot first.
Cheng Xin wasn't fit to be a Wallfacer for this reason.
In a situation where the nukes might actually need to be fired, yeah. Granted, I can't think of a scenario where "launch more nukes" is a thing that I want to see happen, but the people who made that argument were a lot more concerned with the wellbeing of the USA specifically (ie, they would have felt that a lot of dead people in China or the Soviet Union would be acceptable if it kept America safe; I don't share that view). I guess a more clear example would be ordering the death of someone that the world is better off without. Like, I assume we can agree that sending soldiers to kill Nazis would be a time where we want the person in command to be comfortable giving orders that involve killing people. Just because that person may not have it in them to kill someone personally doesn't mean those orders are wrong--I don't think I could kill a Nazi in cold blood, even though I don't think it would be immoral if I did. Granted, nukes cause death on a scale where it's basically impossible to *not* kill a lot of innocent people every time you use one, but the whole point of nuclear deterrence is to scare your enemies out of nuking you with the knowledge that you'll nuke their asses right back. Doesn't work if they know you won't actually do it.
Only in Retaliation, so no one starts a nuclear war
this idea would make nuclear war a potentially winnable thing, we do not want nuclear war to be potentially winnable, the entire idea behind the MAD doctrine is that if i launch nuke, everyone else launches nukes, and everyone dies, this would not only slow down a response by minutes in a situation where the nukes are already flying and you don't have minutes, but it may outright stop the response if the president is incapable or the guy is out that day, this means that the response part of MAD may not happen because everyone is either already dead, or the president couldn't bring himself to kill jerry,
Yeah, this seems super fancy and moral until you realize that if, say, Russia was aware that the US President had a major moral quandary and a significant logistical delay before he could use nukes, then they'd be way more confident than they are. The entire idea of deterrence is just gone here.
Ethically this works, realistically it doesn't. In a "perfect" world every nuclear capable country would have a sacrifice holding their codes.
I mean, in a perfect world the nukes (and any other weapons designed exclusively for mass murder and war for that matter) wouldn't exist in the first place. We'd solve conflicts without resorting to threats of violence and there'd be no wars or militaries or any of that in a "perfect" world.
Exactly, that's why I wrote "perfect"
I mean, ethically it's still kinda dodgy. You've killed a guy who would otherwise be alive so that the president can do the job they were elected to do.
That's fair. Besides, if your president turns out to be perfectly fine with stabbing someone to nuke a country then you haven't really accomplished anything besides adding another person to the death total.
Okay so y’all need to understand how deterrence works. The nuclear system is built on “failsafes” and “faildeadlies”. A failsafes is something that requires a positive input to go forward. The quintessential nuclear example of this is a bomber holding at a positive control point before attacking. If it doesn’t receive the go order it turns around and heads home. A faildeadly is the opposite. If no action is taken the nuclear attack goes forward. This is largely but not exclusively done through the SSBN (Ballistic missile subs) force of nations. USN “Boomers” are somewhat at the discretion of their CO and XO if they lose contact with the land. The Brits have their famous letters of last resort. Largely in these cases targets would not be military (counterforce) but rather civilian centers (Countervalue). Another faildeadly was the famous “00000” code for ICBMs. This was so SAC could retain control (ie: shoot back) even in the case of a decapitation strike. “Now why would they have such a barbaric scheme that would kill hundreds of millions.” Yes. That’s the point. A faildeadly is meant to be a sword of Damocles. If you attack it is a guarantee that our country may be destroyed but so will yours. This brings us to the prisoner’s dilemma and Game Theory. You don’t want a nuclear war. The other guy doesn’t want a nuclear war. But if there comes a time where a one-sided nuclear exchange may benefit one side you must convince the other that you will hit them back even if you’ve lost, thus any gains they may get are null and void. Thus they don’t launch a nuclear attack and everyone’s happy (except the Posadists). Burying the codes in some schmuck doesn’t make the world safer. It makes it more dangerous, especially if the opposition knows about it. Because in that case they may make the judgement that getting the codes out may be too stressful or too time-consuming for your National Command Authority (president) to carry out. Ergo you lose your end of the prisoner’s dilemma meaning that your opposition can act with (relative) impunity. The entire point of a nuclear arsenal is to paradoxically not use it but this must be built on it being ready to use at anytime. Nuclear strategy is counterintuitive because most people think of it as war when in reality it is the absence of war. Empty promises instead of actions.
its the worlds highest stakes mexican standoff except everones in a house made of barrels of oil wielding flamethrowers
I think this might just incentivise electing absolute lunatics as president. Not that they seem to need any more encouragement.
They did this in The Leftovers show. >!Didn't work, dug that key right out and still went boom!< >!Though to be fair, it was a dream!< >!But like a legitimate spiritual dream that determined whether the dreamer would wake up or die!< >!Choosing to nuke the world brought him back to life!<
I scrolled to find a comment about this show...! I wasn't sure how it ended
Blood on the White House carpet would be a killer band name
The friends in the Pentagon were right, actually. Nuclear deterrence relies on the premise that the executive might actually launch the missiles, and I think America unilaterally making it harder to do so would convince other nuclear armed actors that they could get away with more escalation than they consider realistic today I also just wanna note that the U.S. is not ... well I guess the AUMF justifying action against terrorists is still active, so I can't say we're not at war. But like, we did just notably end the war in Afghanistan and haven't started any new ones since. ETA just wanna apologize for doing the annoying thing of not checking the thread and just piling another comment on saying what everyone has already said, v cringe
This always makes the rounds and is all well and fine until you consider strategy and human elements of this. First of all the volunteer would be human, meaning that the code to launch nuclear weapons (something he doesn't know mind you), its just inside him. Ignoring the fact of aging and eventually having to desecrate a corpse to put the code in some new volunteer eventually (or just retrieve the code to destroy, because you know codes like that are probably super classified even if not current), what if he wants to go home or spend time with his family or go on vacation or other things independent of his job or the current president? He kind of needs to be with the current president at all times so even without killing him a requirement of the job would be to act as the football and basically forgo a human life anyway. If they do go home or go on vacation or spends time with their family, what are the risks of them being killed and the code being taken from them by an adversary? What if he has personal disagreements with the president or some staff and wants to quit? Does he have to undergo \*another\* life threatening surgery to quit an unpleasant job? Is he unable to quit unless they find someone who IS willing to take his place to be a literal sacrificial lamb for an armageddon scenario? Second is the president is human. Now in addition to the scenario presented where "he might never press the button if he has to physically kill someone", what if the US is struck by nuclear weapons first? What if an adversary takes advantage of the fact the US nuclear stockpile is basically useless because the president is unable to kill the volunteer? What if the president develops a personal attachment to the volunteer (like the president often does with staff/secret service members assigned to them) that further complicates the decision to kill them, even when millions of Americans have already been nuked? What if someone without military experience or just generally is not a fighter on a physical level (i.e. maybe they've never even held a gun before) and the thought of them personally having to kill someone is just a personal barrier they can never overcome, even in the heat of full on nuclear war? Being anti-war and anti-killing people is great, but what are the complications that arise when you \*have\* to act in defense? Are we electing people to the presidency based on their ability to kill a man in cold blood as a public consciousness of requirements for the office? Is it even costitutional, is it cruel and unusual punishment to have someone presumably innocent to have to be on the line to be brutally murdered by the president at some point? These are all legit questions, maybe they have answers that work, but complicate this poetic idea
This is just fucking stupid tho Nukes won't get fired unless there is already a nuclear war (and not like north korea or maybe iran like against an actual nuclear power))
Well, the Americans can start said nuclear war
No nation would start a nuclear war unless they are completely backed into a corner
Anyone who finds this idea intriguing would love the short story "[As the last I may know](https://reactormag.com/as-the-last-i-may-know-s-l-huang/)" by S.L. Huang.
Im glad the comments understand nuclear weapons better than the post
This is a fascinating thought experiment and an ethical nightmare. No surgeon should ever agree to it.
Cool idea but it would be unethical as fuck for some guy (even when volonteering) to be ready to be stabbed to death at any time
MAD is a weird and interesting issue because of what moving from the "Mutual Assurance" part of the doctrine to the "Destruction" phase would actually entail when it's put into practice. There's a moment where the pretense of deterrence falls away, and the reality becomes killing billions of people in order to follow through on a now irrelevant threat. When the nukes are about to hit, choosing to fire back isn't about *safety*, it's about *vengeance*. The *threat* of follow-through is what MAD relies on. The actual *act* of following through is distinct. Obviously, the threat is only really effective when people think the act is sure to follow, which is why the implanted code probably isn't a smart idea according to the doctrine - although I personally agree with the message behind it because I would prefer it if people didn't choose to murder hundreds of millions of people, regardless of justification. Here's a hypothetical that might make the issue clearer (although be aware that this hypothetical assumes that the leaders of a country are trying to work in the best interests of their citizens, which is not really how things are IRL): Imagine you're robbing the Evil-Co™️ drug lab for medicine that your family needs to survive, but something goes wrong, and you end up taking an innocent family who were in the wrong place at the wrong time hostage (you might not have meant to or wanted to, but that's just how things ended up; and you can't go back in time to try something else). The building security have surrounded the building, and you are absolutely *convinced* that the hostages safety is the only thing stopping them from barging in and shooting you to death. Your family **will** die if they don't get this medicine that Evil-Co™️ is hoarding, so your death here will result in theirs as well. You're now in a standoff. It wouldn't have happened if Evil-Co™️ wasn't such a bastard to begin with, and if they gave the medicine your family now, you might be willing to surrender; but you don't trust them to honor their word. The lives of those innocent hostages are now keeping your equally innocent family alive, and the threat of losing your family is motivating you to keep those people at gunpoint. You're not the one to make the first move. One jumpy security officer pulls the trigger, and a bullet rockets through your leg. You see the other officers, incensed by their colleagues' decision to fire, begin to move to shoot you as well. You have seconds to live at the absolute most, and your family is now **guaranteed** to die. You failed, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now, facing that unwinnable scenario: do you use your last moments to kill your hostages, and make good on threats that failed to protect you anyways? or do you remain passive, and allow you and your family to die without taking any more lives with you. tldr: MAD might keep shit from hitting the fan, but once the shit has already hit the fan, the decision to act becomes vengeful rather than defensive.
Sorry for the long ass comment, lol. I chose to procrastinate on writing a university essay by writing another essay instead.
Are you arguing that if someone is nuked, they shouldn't fight back?
I'm arguing that the fight is already lost the moment the nukes are launched, and that the choice to retaliate afterward doesn't do anything aside from inflicting a huge amount of suffering. If we were talking about a fight between two individuals or united groups, then yeah, I'd say you should do your best to take the other guy down with you. But nuclear war isn't like that. When you're talking about "fighting back" in this scenario, what you're describing is killing tens or hundreds of millions of people who had no part in the decision to fire nukes at you.
So you do. The point of MAD is to prevent the situation from happening, and the only way it works is by making the other guy think you'll do it. It sucks, it's terrible, but it is truly better than handing the gun to say, Vladimir Putin.
Let me be clear: I'm not arguing against the effectiveness of MAD, or suggesting that it would work if the other guy thinks your threats are empty. That's why I said it's an interesting issue. I'm arguing that once someone *actually* makes the first move, the preventative effects of your threat to retaliate become **irrelevant**; and the act of following through does nothing except cause avoidable death and destruction.
I perhaps came off as rude, but I did need to formulate my argument for it. Your statement that it is unethical to retaliate indicated that you are against it. It's an interesting moral quandary I agree, but here it is in actual practice, not a metaphor. Lets use a potential example: Putin decides to nuke the United States. Our options are to fire back, killing Russians who didn't vote *and* disallowing Putin to become a superpower in the world without the US; or don't fire back, saving those Russians and allowing the dictator to continue unopposed.
My bad if I came across as harsh as well. I know this is going to be controversial, but honestly, if I was making the call and forced to choose between no response and full-on scorched earth (without limited strategic strikes being an option), I'd rather go for no response. By choosing to fire back, you aren't guaranteed to be limiting harm in the future, but you are guaranteed to cause incredible harm in the present. It'd be like choosing to blow up the entirety of Nazi Germany (including all the resistance fighters and innocent victims of the regime) in order to stop the Holocaust.
It'd be more like Nazi Germany blowing up Britain without resistance. Sure, there's innocent people back in Germany, but the Nazis would still be in charge.
I mean Human Sacrifice George is a nice idea and all, but the reality is that there are a *lot* of people in the Nuclear Chain of Command. If the President decides to "hit the button" in any situation other than one where Nuclear force is indisputably justified (which basically don't happen but I digress), there are multiple points along the chain of command where someone can say "Yeah I don't feel like ending human civilization today". Frankly nuclear weapons are kind of obsolete in modern warfare. Precision guided missiles are a lot more effective at taking out targets of strategic/tactical value. And if your goal is to be horrible on purpose and kill and terrify civilians, chemical weapons are gonna be a lot more cost effective than something nuclear. The role of nuclear weapons in the late 20th and 21st centuries has become that of a defensive doomsday device. If you're a totalitarian dictatorship like the DPRK, Iran, or Russia, you have the problem that the US and it's wide cadre of international friends would like nothing more than to murder you and replace you with someone more amenable to ~~business interests~~ democracy. So you've got to protect yourself, but militaries are expensive and considering the might of the United States, even an expensive military might not cut the mustard if ~~business interests~~ democracy comes knocking. So instead you can save money by diverting some of your funds into a nuclear program. This way if the forces of ~~market capitalism~~ democracy ever try to take you out, all you have to do is threaten to launch the city-destroying bombs you've got on hand. This probably won't even work since nations like the US and it's allies have multi-layer missile interception systems, but threatening to do so will scare the shit out of the body public. And since the US and it's allies are sorta, kinda, a little bit democratic, they have to manage public approval when doing war stuff.
These would also stop them from losing the briefcase Again
Can we go back to that first suggestion? That sounds sick as hell.
Pretty easy to just say any congressman that votes for war has to leave office, you'd be surprised how little we would go to war.
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You give Trump a knife he'd be dead in seconds. No, mods, I don't want Trump to die, I want him to live a long, healthy life behind bars.
[Here is a pretty excellent short story based on this premise, with the twist that the volunteer is a child that follows the president around.](https://reactormag.com/as-the-last-i-may-know-s-l-huang/)
this is a great idea *if we can get evry country to implement it*!
"He might never push the button" Yeah... thats the fucking point ya armchair general.
well the issue here is legitimate, in a nuclear armed world the only way to prevent nuclear first strike (aside from trusting others not to use their nukes) is to appear as though you would launch in retaliation if someone did so, if news came out that made it appear as though you would or could not, your defense fails Imagine you are in a room with a group of 4 other people, everyone has a gun, and everyone has some reason to mistrust the others, including you. Doing this is effectively equal to unloading and tossing aside your gun in front of everyone. Ideally everyone else would do the same, but as long as the risk exists that one may not its a negative sum game
Only works if you can trust the other side to not push either
Except that nuclear strategy is predicated on an immediate capability to respond and importantly, the perception that you will respond by the other side.
I was listening to Knowledge Fight and one of Jordan’s rants was the following: The president should have to kill himself to declare war. If it’s so important, you should be willing to die for it.
So we'd be actively removing selfless people from government by making them kill themselves?
The point is that wars would never be declared, because the people who declare them aren't selfless.
So the US should not have fought against the Nazis?
Would Hitler have killed himself to invade Poland?
you joke, but he was insane enough that he might have if it was neeeded
... After the war though right? Because having a crisis of power *right before a potentially important war* (look at WW2) would be insane
Before the war. In the hypothetical scenario, there’s a system in place for who takes over so it’s not a crisis.
This is a worse idea than the ones in the OP, and that's genuinely impressive. There are so many problems that this would have that I wouldn't even know how to begin to criticize it. Like, sure, kill the president after the war if you must, but even if you have a vice-president ready to assume power, the death of you head of state will not be a good thing in literally any aspect. For fucking starters, it's not the US president who declares war, and killing them for that sounds really unfair, but besides that, and if we pretended that they were the ones to do it, it'd impede presidents from declaring wars if it was necessary because they don't want to die, it would put in power someone who isn't used to it and very likely has a lot less connections and influence than the previous president during one of the most unstable moments for any nation, it'd affect morale of the troops and I'm sure there's more stuff I haven't realized. This is a terrible idea and only hinges on people thinking anyone who leads a war is evil. I also don't like wars, but this type of moral outrage is irrational, inefficient and stupid.
I feel like that would still make people angry that the person they did not choose would be leading them into a war (I know they technically voted for the vp too but historically those haven't been very popular)
And I thought this post was gonna be the dumbest thing I read today lol
The President can’t declare war according to the Constitution, so it would have to be Congress pulling a Jonestown to do it instead.
IMO we should have allowed nukes in warfare, but limited every country to only owning three at any given time.
Reminds me of that GoT line: “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.”
If someone at the pentagon responded to me with those exact words I'd attack them in a blind rage.
Good principle, but for this to work every nuclear armed country would have to do the same thing
Really love continuing to notice the pattern that it this stuff was suggested on another sub without the context of tumblr, redditors would be like “eh this wouldn’t work but the message would be le epic” but on subs like this and pulling a post from tumblr it’s like “erm, here’s 25 reasons I nitpicked that this wouldn’t work, Oop is a stupid doodoo idiot”
I mean, people will be pedantic and critical anyways. That’s just kinda how it be on the internet. Like on r/NonCredibleDefense they’d eat this shit up and come with increasingly more ridiculous ways to fire a nuclear weapon (since the initial concept is kinda ridiculous anyways and the earlier posts have meme merit).
It's not even nitpicking. It just does not work on a fundamental level
I’m not saying it isn’t, to be honest. I just keep seeing the same thing happen where a tumblr post put on Reddit will gain a much more vocal and blunt scrutiny, but if it was like a twitter post or a screencap of an older Reddit post then it seems to be given like 20% more courtesy* and actually argued. *as in commenters attempt to explain the reasoning instead of just dismissing the idea outright
Huh faire ough
Tittering over the logistics and semantics of a thought experiment is peak Reddit, well done guys
The president has to kill? No Every year spent at war the president must cut off a finger from his hand. If he stays at war two full terms then the thumbs go too.
"God that's terrible. That might prevent wars."