Mr. President, What Do You Do? StuckInTheSixties: This is simply a hypothetical scenario meant to stimulate conversation. There are a million reasons why this hypothetical scenario might be less than realistic, so please refrain from listing the ways to say that. Just go with the scenario for the sake of discussion, if you please. Here's the scenario: You are the President of the United States, but not here and now in 2011. We're in the past. It's some time around the middle of the Seventies to the middle of the Eighties. The Soviet Union is at the zenith of it's power. The cold war is at it's peak. You, Mr. President, are on vacation, visiting some National Park or something. You're not in Washington, and you're well away from any large cities. But you are, of course, completely linked to your government in terms of communication. In the event of an emergency, it's possible to notify you as quickly and easily as if you were upstairs in bed in the White House. As you're relaxing, enjoying this time with your family, suddenly you are summoned to the scrambled telephone. You receive this news: NORAD has just detected the launch of a substantial number of intercontinental ballistic missles. The targets have been determined to be our own ICBMs, and only one city: Washington, DC. This is not the Nuclear Apocalypse, but it is an obvious attempt to decapitate our government, and eliminate or reduce our ability to retaliate. Any course of action that could possibly be conceived has enormous implications of all sorts. You are facing the most important decisions that anyone in human history has ever faced. Mr. President, what do you do?  davidk14: . Presidential advisor: Ahhhh…Mr. President, they launched some nukes at us and have targeted Washington. Did you happen to say something to the Ruskies that we are not aware of? President responds: Um….ahhh….geez….are you sure they launched? I’m on vacation damit! OK…here’s what we are going to do. Launch the exact same amount of missiles and target Moscow. Contact those commie bastards and tell them if they destroy their missiles, so will we. Matter of fact, get those jerkoffs on the phone and I’ll tell them myself. What? Am I in a frickin Dr. Strangelove movie or what? How long do we have? 40 minutes? GET THEM ON THE BAT PHONE!!! Advisor: Yes Mr. President. By the way, how was lunch? Did you like the trout? President: Yes, it was lovely. What’s for dessert? . StuckInTheSixties: Perhaps I deserve this response, given the goofy and unserious manner that I sometimes have to respond to some threads. davidk14: . Sixties, Both sides have played your scenario millions of times and came up with the same answer. There is no winner. That’s why I believe it never happened. I mentioned Dr. Stangelove, as close to your scenario as it deserves. There was another movie named Fail Safe where a mechanical error sent B52’s to bomb Moscow. The Fail Safe return to base failed and the US worked with the Soviets to bring down the entire bomber wing. All the planes were brought down except one and that B52 delivered its payload. The President (Henry Fonda) nuked New York City to prove to the Soviets that it was just a mechanical error. Anyway, that’s it..what it’s worth. . StuckInTheSixties: There could actually be a winner in this scenario. By the way, Dr. Strangelove is, perhaps, my favorite movie of all time. And both the book and movie Failsafe are favorites. StuckInTheSixties: But more to the point ... You're sitting in that lawn chair watching your Presidential family on vacation, and that phone call comes ... ... TO YOU, MR. PRESIDENT. That "limited strike," as it's called, is on it's way. There's no way to even attempt to stop it like they tried to do in both Dr. Strangelove and Failsafe. What do you do? davidk14: . I'd shoot them down with the Star Wars system that I had secretly built and that's why the debt is at $14.3 trillion? Well sixties, I really don't know. It's above my pay grade. Too many possibilities to think about like was it the Russian Government or a rouge general. Who do you talk to? Do you accept the reason given? “Vat are ya takking about? Vat vockets?” Or, “it’s not us..it’s the Jews…it’s always the Jews!..They want to eliminate us…Let’s both nuke them and blame it all on them! It’s worked in the past!” Ok…I’ll shut up now. Although, a very interesting question you have there sixties. It will be interesting if someone comes up with a reasonable answer. .  Teece: Well, theres nothing for it is there? Grab another Margarita and tell your advisors to tell the world that you were incommunicado at the time..... Can't save Washington so might as well get sloshed..... *shrug* StuckInTheSixties: There actually is a solution to this problem, david, albeit one that is not very palatable, and one which, I think, will upset you. I dropped a hint ( "There could actually be a winner in this scenario." ), but no one picked up on it. Were I your advisor, Mr. President, I would tell you to simply absorb the blow and see what happens next. That's your only move. That move preserves more options than any other move. Admittedly, that move might result in the defeat of the West and a world-wide communist take-over. That would be a terrible result, I'm sure we could agree. However, compare that result with the standard MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) response. Going MAD results in a nuclear apocalypse. In that scenario, not only does no one win, but everyone loses. By resisting the MAD response, even if there was the dreaded Soviet Communist world-wide empire as a result, you preserve the POSSIBILITY for democracy to make a comeback in the future, not to mention preserving a world for more than radioactive cockroaches. That possibility is lost with the MAD response. It's an awful thing to contemplate, but it's the only sane thing to do. So don't push the red button, Mr. President. (I got that concept many years ago from a short story by Arthur C. Clarke.) StuckInTheSixties: He's touring. He's also playing at the Davies Symphony Hall in the City. It's about ten billion times as big as the place I'm seing him. I can't believe it, but I've never seen him before. StuckInTheSixties: In 1971, I was into all this intense music, like Grateful Dead, and Yes, Allman Brothers Band, Derek and the Dominos, etc. A friend of mine gave me his "Sail Away" album, which is as different from any of that stuff as you could imagine. He hated the album, hated how he sang. I really liked it, and really liked his lyrics and piano style, his sort of old-timey compositional style. | Politics Chat Room 86 People Chatting Similar Conversations |
