The MADness of Nuclear Targeting: Daniel Ellsberg and the Doomsday Machine.

The article focuses on the critique of U.S. nuclear war planning, particularly the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) and its implications as revealed by Daniel Ellsberg and Air Force General George Lee Butler. It highlights how nuclear targeting plans, developed largely without civilian oversight, conflated Soviet and Chinese targets, reflecting a first-strike posture aimed at limiting damage from retaliation rather than purely deterring attack. The article also discusses Ellsberg's exposure of the secrecy and inherent risks in U.S. nuclear strategy, including the policy of "launch on warning," and situates this within a broader historical context influenced by figures like Bertrand Russell, whose advocacy for nuclear threat as geopolitical leverage contributed to the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).