Is there any point to a retaliatory strike in the event of nuclear war?

Let's say that sometime during the Cold War, the Societ Union launches a full-blown strategic nuclear attack against the United States, intending to wipe us out in the first wave. If this were to happen, what would be the point of the US launching a retaliatory strike? As soon as all those missiles are loosed, that's basically the end of the US as we know it, since there's no way we would be able to intercept even a significant fraction of them. What purpose would there be in launching an equal counterstrike and killing millions more people?

Bob, do you have an understanding of human nature?



Why launch nukes in return? The answer is simply 'one massive fuck you' in return or you can say an act of spite.

Hell, one may as well ask why do humans crave revenge?

To prevent them from taking over the world in the aftermath. If you've launched a full nuclear strike with intent to glass someplace unprovoked, you're insane and need to be stopped.

And, it's MAD for a reason. Kill us all, we kill all of you.

First off, you're overestimating the amount of damage even a full-blown Soviet nuclear strike would do. There'd still be enough population and infrastructure to call the US a functional nation, especially considering how most plans would have been counter-force or counter-value rather than counter-population.

Second, we would owe it to NATO to try to stop the Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces from over-running them.

Third, if we didn't wreck the Soviet Union in return, there would be a space of a couple decades where the US would be vulnerable to invasion. Depending on how badly damaged US forces were, they might have lost the ability to resist an assault on the mainland.

Fourth, there are reserve warheads; if we knew where they were, we could hit those stockpiles.

Fifth, to keep those insane bastards from trying again; even if we don't directly get the government, a nuclear retaliation would greatly increase the chance of somebody overthrowing the madmen who wrecked the Soviet Union.

Human nature makes it very clear as to why the US would launch a retaliatory strike.

If you are going to hell, go in a crowd.

I'll quote Moby Dick to reinforce Space Penguin's point "From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!"

Seriously though Richardson is right, your looking at it like "oh no millions more people are going to die" the flip side is a generations of the globe living in oppression of an insane and genocidal regime. That's billions and billions of people. Frankly against that, the death of a couple hundred million soviets seems minor.

The enemy has no reason not to destroy their enemy unless they know that they themselves would also be destroyed.

MAD is one of the most interesting concepts ever to me

We disapprove strenuously of people who kill us.

Um...countervalue IS counter-population: the targeting of an opponents cities and civilian populations.

And considering the number of nuclear weapons the Soviets possessed at the height of the Cold War, that's a shitload of infrastructure that's been wiped off the map. I just don't see how the US wouldn't have at least ended up fragmenting into separate nation-states.

There really isn't if the missiles fly you have failed ,but,MAD depends on the other side believing you will so they won't launch.
US would be pretty much wrecked by a nuclear exchange.

Alright, I can buy that. But what I want to know is did the US intend to destroy only Soviet government and military installations in response, or also target major civilian population centers as well?

...Truth be told, I hadn't thought of that. But even if the US did retaliate, would that be enough to stop other nations from nuking each other?

Well look at the French and their psychopath doctrine regarding the USSR. "We won´t nuke your military. We will nuke your cities."

The Soviet Union targeted US military infrastructure. Sadly, most military bases are colocated with major population centers. US doctrine was to attack military infrastructure as well. Only in the Soviet Union, their infrastructure relating to the military is often based in the middle of the boonies.

Alternate scenario, (if OP doesn't object): What if an insane US President decides to bring on Armageddon and launches a first strike against Russia. Should Russia retaliate, bearing in mind the lives of hundreds of millions of innocent Americans?

I'd say yes. US has obviously gone nutso in this, no point in leaving them to take over the world. Same rules apply.

Educate thyself. Counter-value is targeting infrastructure such as railroad junctions, supply depots, and factories. Yes, a lot of this is inside cities, but neither Soviet nor US planners were really looking for megadeaths.

As to the casualties of a nuclear war: I'll admit, it's worse than I thought (looked it up a few minutes ago), but I'm pretty sure at least half of the US population will survive the initial bombardment, and at least a few government officials are going to be safe, especially the President if he's successfully evacuated.

EDIT: @Plamafish, same rules apply if it's the US which has gone insane. A government which deliberately uses weapons of mass destruction against population centers under anything but the most extreme of duress has clearly gone insane and must be destroyed.

To answer the OP, most reasons boil down to variations on three:

1. So in the next iteration of the Cold War game, some upstart doesn't get the idea that nuking things is a way to achieve his ends.
2. The other guy totally deserves it and/or is a menace to global society
3. If people don't believe you're actually going to push The Button, then the entire dynamic of nuclear deterrence falls apart like a house of cards.

I think 3 is the most important.

It's kind of beside the point, the obvious threat alone is supposed to, and has, kept nuclear war at bay. For me, retaliation is is pretty much vengeful justice, so they're as fucked as they made you. What's the point in letting them get away with it? And, as pointed out, the rest of the world has to live with these guys, and nuking them back would solve that issue.

Erm... that rather depends on when the USSR launches the strike in question. A war in 1962 is much more survivable then one in 1982...

No it isn't. Counter-value strategy is based upon targetting non-military targets... no more and no less. Counter-population is a type of counter-value strategy, but nuking an oil refinery in the middle of nowhere is just as much counter-value as nuking an oil refinery in the center of a populated city.

A counter-value strike may kill a lot of people, but that is usually because many counter-value targets are located in heavily populated areas. That does not make the strike counter-population, as the destruction of the civilian populace is merely collateral damage. A counter-population strike is carried out with the intent of killing as many people as possible, not with the intent of neutralizing a specific target.

Bob is too idealistic to understand human nature.


Now to answer OP, to not retaliate means that you're a nuclear push over. I want something from you? I'll nuke you since you won't fight back.

They're pretty much the same thing. Centers of government power, infrastructure backbones and massive industrial facilities are in and around large urban areas. A higher % of the Soviet population would survive a nuclear exchange, but that's a product of having semi-realistic civil defense plans and a more rural population over a larger land mass to start with.

Think of it this way. Say you are a Soviet planning an attack on the Chicago area and want to destroy things of war-waging value. This is just the start of your list:

-- O'Hare Airport (multiple warheads - possible bomber dispersion site)
-- Midway Airport (multiple warheads - possible bomber dispersion site)
-- Great Lakes Naval Training Center (military installation)
-- Union Station (the rail hub of the central United States)
-- Loop (financial hub)
-- University of Chicago (research university)
-- Northwestern University (research university)
-- All the steel plants on the south end of Lake Michigan (multiple warheads)

You've killed a ton of people before you've even started trying to kill a ton of people or take out other interesting infrastructure.

Even in their case though, they would be targeting the warheads on the coordinates of valuable infrastructure. You don't program in "hit Moscow."

The current Chinese are most likely the only nation in the world with a primary nuclear strategy of "kill as many of those bastards as possible." That's because it's intended as a response to an unprovoked United States (or Russian) first strike, and they don't have the accuracy or warhead count for much else. They probably still want to destroy things like oil refineries; this is a really good way of inflating the damage small numbers of warheads will do because they're vital, fragile and complex to rebuild. But at least their older stuff would only be able to hit reasonably close to any specific target. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your POV, the backbone of their nuclear fleet was 3-5 megaton warheads, so "reasonably close" counts for soft targets.

All else aside?

Vengeance. It's likely not a good reason, but human nature being what it is. It'll do.

You don't quite understand now nuclear strikes work IMHO. By the point that the enemy launches, then the decision to launch has already been made, perhaps months in advance. "When the enemy does X, all silos do Y" would be a standing order. There's never a moment when the president will be looking down at the screen, watching the red blips go over the pole and debating if to push the button. The button will already have been pushed long ago.

There's also the issue that many weapons in a full cold war scenario would be targeted to destroy enemy weapons. While it's unlikely you'd get many, or all of them, it might reduce the damage... and you've got to try right?

So yeah, strike.