>> It's rationally arguable that making sure they're left in a recovery state too increases your survivors' chances.
But if you are in position to launch the counterattack(say sitting in a missile silo with your hand on the launch button), then once the missiles are on their way to you, you are dead. It might take them 30-60 minutes to actually get there, but you are dead anyway. Absolutely nothing you can do at that point will change that. Retaliating will not improve your current situation. And yes, it might improve the chances of the survivors, but at the same time, you know that if you press that button millions of people will die. I think I'd just leave it at that point.
>But if you are in position to launch the counterattack(say sitting in a missile silo with your hand on the launch button), then once the missiles are on their way to you, you are dead.
Can you explain why you think this is relevant? Military/security personnel accepting their own deaths as part of winning is hardly some alien concept. If you're sitting in a missile silo ready to launch then you will have gone through a lot of training (and/or indoctrination), mental prep, and practice for the event that is hoped to never come and knowing that if it does your life will be one of many gone. In fact, even for civilians if you're guaranteed to be dead anyway but have a few minutes left to make a difference, that could just as easily trigger a "well, might as well spend whatever I've got left trying to take the enemy with me and ensure my side still has a chance" mindset.
Also, thinking out the implications of your argument the moral position appears dubious in other ways. For example, it suggests that it'd be preferable to initiate a first strike, and wipe out all those millions, if you knew that would save your own hide and side vs a second strike after already being attacked in the hope of helping others beyond yourself. And if not that then it ends up "well I wouldn't push it no matter what", in which case you wouldn't be there right? And what if it's not "millions" in for your launch? You need to define how many it's ok to kill, like if your particular silo is aimed at military targets, other silos out in the middle of nowhere. Or does your argument boil down to total pacifism?
>And yes, it might improve the chances of the survivors, but at the same time, you know that if you press that button millions of people will die.
Millions of people will die anyway. Millions of your people. Whereas the millions (or hundreds/dozens, see above, many missiles aren't aimed at cities) you kill by pushing the button will be the millions who were on the side that killed your millions and may well be reasonably expected to then come and finish the job for your millions of survivors [1]. Remember, the argument here is whether there is a rational position in favor of launching. Many debates have multiple fully rational but conflicting positions, nothing wrong with that! But that doesn't mean they aren't all rational in and of themselves.
You can certainly hold the moral position that every life is valuable and that leaving the enemy, no matter how horrid, to profit from mass nuclear attack and take over the world is the right thing to do anyway. I'm just saying that such a position is not the only rational one at all.
>I think I'd just leave it at that point.
I think you wouldn't pass screening to be put into that position in the first place, even assuming you volunteered for it which it doesn't sound like you would. I can't say I'd want to be in that position either, though at the same time I want to be cognizant of my shared responsibility for it as a citizen.
----
1: At least for America, most of the population is urban, but with a total of over 320 million that still leaves a lot of people in rural areas. Specifically (based on the last census numbers I found) about 97% of the land area of 3.8 million mi^2 is classified as "rural", and it contains about 19% of the population (so about 60 million people). Even in the case of all urban centers being destroyed that's still a lot of people left in absolute terms. It is for example more people than the total national population for the first century of the country's existence (up until around 1890).
>Military/security personnel accepting their own deaths as part of winning is hardly some alien concept.
Sure - on paper. The guy in the field sure as hell doesn't accept his own death. _I Don't Want To Die_ is one of the strongest urges in the human psyche, we, collectively, lionize people who put the needs of others before their own. The armed forces, who as you say spends a lot of time getting people to accept their mortality, and denigrates the individual in favour of the collective's goals, gives out medals to people who do this _because it's really rare_.
>If you're sitting in a missile silo ready to launch then you will have gone through a lot of training (and/or indoctrination), mental prep, and practice for the event that is hoped to never come and knowing that if it does your life will be one of many gone.
At least in the US, the men and women manning the the silos have some of the worst morale in the entire armed forces. Rolling Stone did a bit on this[1]. How happy would you be, stuck in the middle of North Dakota, working shifts in a subterranean hell hole from the 1950s, knowing that your job is to _literally end the world_ and that you are sitting on a bullseye? As you said, these are the people who volunteered, who were screened, who are getting the propaganda shoved down their throats and they're literally killing themselves because of the stress.
I recall it was mostly because of the installation of the code systems. Originally their morale was among the highest in the military. But when they were turned into drones typing codes, instead of trusted citizen/soldiers with a mission, morale tanked?
But if you are in position to launch the counterattack(say sitting in a missile silo with your hand on the launch button), then once the missiles are on their way to you, you are dead. It might take them 30-60 minutes to actually get there, but you are dead anyway. Absolutely nothing you can do at that point will change that. Retaliating will not improve your current situation. And yes, it might improve the chances of the survivors, but at the same time, you know that if you press that button millions of people will die. I think I'd just leave it at that point.