It would take about 30 minutes for a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to travel from Russia to the United States. If launched from a submarine, it could arrive even faster than that. Once the launch is detected and confirmed as an attack, the president is briefed. At that point, the commander-in-chief might have about two or three minutes at most to decide whether to launch hundreds of America’s own ICBMs in retaliation or risk losing the ability to retaliate at all.
This is an absurd amount of time to make any consequential decision, much less what would pot
HALO NEWSLETTER
Keep reading HALO with a Free Subscription
unlock this story instantly and join members and pros reading HALO daily
-It's
Free