OK, hypothetically we are talking about 20 Russian sourced nukes exploding in US cities.
I doubt that they will shoot their whole wad at once. They will go for maximum chaos. Blow one… make impossible demands. Blow another... make more demands.
We simply need something like the Russian "doomsday machine"
If the US is nuked, it starts a chain of events the leads to the extinction of the human race... Say we name a list of twenty possible retaliatory targets. Mecca, Pyongyang, Damascus, Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, Paris, Delhi, Jerusalem, Pretoria... on down the line
Simply put, we put all the words nuclear powers on a "hit list" Every explosion on our soil results in the random selection of an important city and it is obliterated.
...Every nuclear and terrorist nation "feels our pain"
A mass launch by any one (or all) nation(s) would be responded to "in kind."
Back to deterrence.
Simple, sinister and effective BUMP to you...!!
You forgot London.
Boy, if that kind of insanity gets perpetrated by our government I'll join the other side.
yes thats great.
you should be quiet now, the grown-ups are talking. shhh...
Interesting conjecture, except you forget a few details.
First, "maximum chaos" would happen if they did set them all off at once. Second, if they set them all off at once, they don't have to worry about stepped-up policing efforts discovering any of their other weapons before they can set them off.
And, even apart from those two factors, there's the biggie: coordinated multiple/simultaneous attacks are AlQ's trademarked MO. It's what they do.