Please tell me this is just for dramatic effect
For some reason I have been watching several of the nuclear war movies I have on DVD or VHS. Some of the ones written from the mistaken launch/source point of view often have one thing in common. At some point the president is in a room with his advisors, one or more are the voice of reason trying to pull back before total devastation is unleashed but the rest are the war hawks wanting to show their strength, feeling a sudden full retaliatory response would/could bring total devastation to the enemy with acceptable losses to our side.
One of these movies (the most popular, in modern times) The Sum of All Fears, show the same type of situation occurring on the other side also.
With the movies they do this for the dramatic effect, but sometimes art imitates life.
While I realize we have not had an exchange of nuclear weapons ever and only two weapons have been dropped in anger to date (and hopefully forever), so the exact situation has not occurred. However, in my mind I can imagine this happening for real.
History has fairly well documented the debate when the timeline is hours and days, such as the Cuban Missile Crises where some of Kennedy’s military advisors wanted to launch an attack, but the seconds and minutes are a little less known (or at least I haven’t heard the accounts) although we know we have had some near misses when it comes to launching nuclear weapons.
The reason I bring this up is every four years when we elect a president we hear about many important issues, such as the economy, the environment and the military, but with one or two conventional wars occurring nuclear weapons have not been discussed much since the cold war except for keeping them out of Iran.
I for one vote with the knowledge the Commander in Chief is the ONE who would authorize the use of nuclear weapons in the forefront of my mind. I also remind myself that for now the mistaken launch/source is a more probable situation than the nuclear attacks feared during the cold war.
Now I imagine the situation room, suspected to be in the basement of the White House, in it are the highest level advisors to the president giving advise as how to proceed but ultimately it is the President, our Commander in Chief who will give the launch order.
I picture Barack Obama, someone known for making decisions to help the common person, then I picture Mitt Romney, someone known to make decisions without the concern as to how it affects the common person. Who do I want to be making that decision for the next four years?
Just food for thought. What do you all think?
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