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Comment by cloakandswagger | Hacker News Reader

At 7km/s, it would take around 20 minutes for an ICBM fired from the US to reach Moscow. It takes about 3 minutes for an intermediate range missile to travel from Poland to Moscow.

So yes, there is a huge advantage to pursuing intermediate range missiles.

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Why is 17 minutes important when the context is Mutually Assured Destruction, possibly enforced via stealth subs you can’t hit preemptively and deadman switches to detect the first strike?

That 17 minutes is important in terms of being able to assess the threat and react. 3 minutes might mean by the time you launch, enough launchers are destroyed that it's "worth it" to eat the counter attack and "win" at MAD.

I thought the point of nuclear submarines was that they don’t get destroyed in the other side’s first strike?

And it takes just a few years to turn those pro-Western countries that might house the missiles into mildly pro-Russian ones. Especially when they realize they're literally in the middle and Russia is way closer. Whether this is a good decision will be judged by the future generations. Looking around in the world doesn't it seem like most of US's allies have turned into disgruntled partners (employees?) at best or hostages at worst? Because they keep electing governments that are increasingly reluctant to be best friends with the US.

“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests”

― Henry Kissinger

I don't know about friends but he is directly responsible for many of the enemies it has.

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