First strike - Definition and Overview

In nuclear strategy, first strike capability is a country's ability to defeat another nuclear power by destroying its arsenal to the point where the attacking country can survive the weakened retaliation.

Theory

One reason that critics oppose missile defense systems, such as Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, is that they view them as undermining one of the fundamental premises of mutual assured destruction: the proposed defense systems, intended to lessen the risk of devastating nuclear war, would lead to it, according to critics.

The non-missile defense side, seeing that a nation was building a defense against a first strike and believing that the other could launch a first strike if it dared, would then launch a pre-emptive first strike while they still had a chance. The reasoning behind this is the claim that mutual destruction is better than defeat.

History

During the Cuban missile crisis, Fidel Castro wrote Nikita Khrushchev a letter about the prospect that the United States might follow an invasion of Cuba with a first strike against the USSR. The following quotation from the letter suggests to some writers that Castro was calling for a Soviet first strike against the US.

"... the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it." [1] (http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/cmc_castro_khrushchev.html)

See also

• Counterforce nuclear weapon
• Decapitation strike

External links

• Robert McNamara's "Mutual Deterrence" speech from 1962 (http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence.shtml)