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A counterforce target is an element of the military infrastructure, usually either specific weapons or the bases that support them. A counterforce strike is an attack that targets those elements but leaving the civilian infrastructure, the countervalue targets, as undamaged as possible.
In nuclear strategy, countervalue is the targeting of an opponent's assets that are of value but not actually a military threat, such as cities and civilian populations. Counterforce is the targeting of an opponent's military forces and facilities. [ 1 ]
Countervalue – The opposite of counterforce; targeting of enemy cities and civilian populations. Used to distract the enemy. Decapitation – Achieving strategic paralysis by targeting political leadership, command and control, strategic weapons, and critical economic nodes
Targeting should make it very explicit that the first requisite is selective retaliation against the enemy's military (i.e., tailored counterforce). Some targets and target classes should not be struck, at least at first, to give the opponent a rational reason to terminate the conflict.
The ever-expanding target lists were split into classes of targets, with a wider range of plans matching strikes to political intentions from counterforce to countervalue, or any mix/withhold strategy to control escalation. Schlesinger described the doctrine as having three main aspects:
Nuclear utilization target selection (NUTS) is a hypothesis regarding the use of nuclear weapons often contrasted with mutually assured destruction (MAD). [1] NUTS theory at its most basic level asserts that it is possible for a limited nuclear exchange to occur and that nuclear weapons are simply one more rung on the ladder of escalation pioneered by Herman Kahn.
MARK ULRIKSEN mysterious stranger who blows into town one day and makes the bad guys go away. He wore a grizzled beard and had thick, un-bound hair that cascaded halfway down his
Perhaps counterintuitively, an important focus of nuclear strategy has been determining how to prevent and deter their use, a crucial part of mutually assured destruction. In the context of nuclear proliferation and maintaining the balance of power , states also seek to prevent other states from acquiring nuclear weapons as part of nuclear ...