Comments by "King Ace" (@kingace6186) on "How the Russia-Ukraine War Could Turn into a Nuclear Nightmare" video.

To be fair to Khruzchev, when he said "We will bury you!", he followed that up by reaching Space first. Back then, the Space Race was fueled by a desire to launch rockets into low Earth Orbit capable of carrying nukes (aka ICBMs), just as much as it was by scientific exploration. So by being the first nation in space, the Soviets literally could have buried any capitalist country (theoretically) -- which motivated the US to send Alan Sheperd into space ahead of schedule.
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Bizarrely and terrifyingly enough, pre-pandemic, there actually was a push in USAF to delegate the nuclear authority of launch from POTUS & STRATCOM to POTUS & Regional Commands (I'm assuming STRATCOM would keep the authority for the non-tactical, strategic weapons). In fact, there were even rumors of bilateral talks with Russia to do the same -- I don't know if these were true. Quite compellingly, actually, the main persuasion given was that doing so would remove the need for hair-trigger readiness and its accompanying risks. However, the risks posed by tactical were in the hands of commanders (like General MacAruthr who advocated for their use in Vietnam, and people like Ramzan Kadyrov). Thankfully, the Pentagon ultimately decided to keep the status quo, at least for the time being, but the idea alone is unsettling.
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