>Unless any random outage or terrorist/conventional strike against one’s early-warning radars, or errant satellite launch by a low-grade nuclear power, is automatic grounds for a universal MAD offensive.
They are, that's what Stanislav Petrov is famous for helping prevent. A single early warning satellite had an anomalous reading and everyone wanted to start nuclear Armageddon, only prevented because he didn't believe the US would send only a few warheads, to the point he was willing to bet his country on it.
Famously the US plans early on didn't really have any distinction as to who fired, and the only retaliatory option available was to go full send with everything on Soviet cities.
Specifically about satellite launches, yeah, that's a genuine concern, which is why they are talked about publicly, even when it's a classified spy satellite going up, why you are very loud and public about testing ballistic missiles anywhere you do so, and why both the US and USSR worked very very hard on making computers to quickly estimate the landing point of a ballistic launch.
Meanwhile the entire point of nuclear missile submarines is that ground based missiles are an explicit target of known enemies, and thus not likely to survive a first strike. They are not intended or planned to survive such a first strike, which is why we had SAC flying B52s 24/7 for like 40 years. Any missiles that aren't out of their tubes before enemy detonation are mostly assumed lost.
In fact, nuclear submarines have gone a long, long way to improve the situation, because now you don't have to rely on those ground based or air based warheads as much, so you can be more conservative in your judgement. If you're wrong and the soviets really did initiate nuclear war, oh well, Tridents will show them the error of their ways.
The biggest "eh, we should wait before we launch" cause is simply the lack of tension between world powers. Despite Russia's blustering, in official capacities they have not signaled that they are looking to launch nukes. They have not significantly increased their readiness, towards a large scale anti-NATO war, to the point that they are literally removing defenses from the border with Finland in order to divert those resources to invasion.
There has only been one "Oh shit oh god" moment that I know of; when an S300 missile (which I believe later turned out to be Ukrainian) landed in Poland and killed a farmer. There was a crisis meeting of NATO members.
They are, that's what Stanislav Petrov is famous for helping prevent. A single early warning satellite had an anomalous reading and everyone wanted to start nuclear Armageddon, only prevented because he didn't believe the US would send only a few warheads, to the point he was willing to bet his country on it.
Famously the US plans early on didn't really have any distinction as to who fired, and the only retaliatory option available was to go full send with everything on Soviet cities.
Specifically about satellite launches, yeah, that's a genuine concern, which is why they are talked about publicly, even when it's a classified spy satellite going up, why you are very loud and public about testing ballistic missiles anywhere you do so, and why both the US and USSR worked very very hard on making computers to quickly estimate the landing point of a ballistic launch.
Meanwhile the entire point of nuclear missile submarines is that ground based missiles are an explicit target of known enemies, and thus not likely to survive a first strike. They are not intended or planned to survive such a first strike, which is why we had SAC flying B52s 24/7 for like 40 years. Any missiles that aren't out of their tubes before enemy detonation are mostly assumed lost.
In fact, nuclear submarines have gone a long, long way to improve the situation, because now you don't have to rely on those ground based or air based warheads as much, so you can be more conservative in your judgement. If you're wrong and the soviets really did initiate nuclear war, oh well, Tridents will show them the error of their ways.
The biggest "eh, we should wait before we launch" cause is simply the lack of tension between world powers. Despite Russia's blustering, in official capacities they have not signaled that they are looking to launch nukes. They have not significantly increased their readiness, towards a large scale anti-NATO war, to the point that they are literally removing defenses from the border with Finland in order to divert those resources to invasion.
There has only been one "Oh shit oh god" moment that I know of; when an S300 missile (which I believe later turned out to be Ukrainian) landed in Poland and killed a farmer. There was a crisis meeting of NATO members.