Why is the Nuclear Triad needed if nuclear subs can’t be realistically countered?
In: Technology
The entire idea of mutually assured destruction relies on our enemies actually wanting to survive. If they absolutely know that a nuclear attack on the United States ends their lives also, the thinking is they would not attack us. This probably holds for Russia and China. Less so for “rogue” nations like North Korea.
But imagine an enemy that discovered a secret way to render our subs useless. Something we had no idea they could do. That might embolden them to try a “first strike”. No subs, no retaliation, they win.
The idea of the Nuclear Triad, is that we hope no nation could possibly undermine all three methods of retaliation (subs, missiles, bombers); meaning no sane nation would even try.
**tl;dr We don’t want a nation that develops ground-breaking new anti-sub technology to think they could win, so we have alternate methods of retaliation as part of mutually assured destruction.**
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