One of the most unintuitive concepts in thinking about Cold War strategy is the assertion that explicitly targeting the opponent's civilian instead of military targets was morally superior: targeting military first (counterforce targets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce) would potentially prevent retaliation and thus allow an aggressive first strike. Targeting civilian (countervalue targets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue) would ensure destruction and thus be inherently defensive.
It makes my head (and heart) hurt to think about it and I'm glad that I didn't have to make those kinds of decisions. I can see how it can (and did) lead to madness and the kind of irrational thinking satirized in Dr Strangelove and other stories.
It makes my head (and heart) hurt to think about it and I'm glad that I didn't have to make those kinds of decisions. I can see how it can (and did) lead to madness and the kind of irrational thinking satirized in Dr Strangelove and other stories.