First strike capability in this context means to survive the retaliation, I forget this could be misunderstood by those not in the know.
Hm. I remember that was second strike/ride out capability: You could be nuked but your missiles would survive to trash the person who struck first. The whole MX missile thing was designed for that in the 80's, before Reagan went to deep pack mode which was stupid as... well par for the course.
Doing a fast lookup on FS I get:
the initial use of nuclear weapons to attack a country that also has nuclear weapons; considered feasible only when the attacker can destroy the other country's ability to retaliate
Amusingly enough Khrushchev was a more rational actor than Kennedy as he knew Kennedy would not back down.
Good history lesson there.
Indeed. My dad told me about working in CA during that time, waking up, driving to work, and seeing all the fog in the valley. Except the fog was not fog, but missiles out of the tubes, fueled, and ready for a hot launch.
Fun times.
