Decapitation strike

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In the theory of nuclear warfare, a decapitation strike is a first strike attack that aims to remove the command and control mechanisms of the opponent, in the hope that it will severely degrade or destroy its capacity for nuclear retaliation.

Strategies against decapitation strikes include:

distributed command and control structures
dispersal of political and military leadership in times of tension
delegation of the ability to fire to local commanders in the event of a decapitation strike

A failed decapitation strike carries the risk of immediate massive retaliation undertaken by the targeted opponent.

Other nuclear warfare doctrines explicitly exclude decapitation strikes, on the basis that it is better to preserve the adversary's command and control structures so that a single authority remains which is capable of negotiating a surrender or ceasefire.

Implementing fail-deadly mechanisms are a way to prevent successful decapitation strikes.

[edit] Decapitation strikes with conventional weapons

Since the development of high-precision guided conventional weapons, strategies similar to this have been attempted by the United States using conventional warheads at the start of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

[edit] In fiction

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In the movie Dr. Strangelove, Senator Buford complains that the US nuclear deterrent lacks credibility. If the President were killed in a decapitation strike, retaliation would be impossible. Wing Attack Plan R is devised to close this loophole.

In The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust, an Alternative History in which the 1962 crisis developed into war, the Soviets manage to destroy Washington D.C. and kill Kennedy, Johnson and most of their political and military advisors. This coup, however, works disastrously against the Soviet Union. Had Kennedy survived, he might have ordered a measured response. Since he didn't, surviving American generals order a total attack, which continues long past the breaking of any Soviet military capacity and results in killing some 80% of the entire Soviet population, and later gets the US accused of genocide.