Your doomsday scenario only plays out if our entire country is dependant on chain of command at the federal level. It is not.

If a nuclear strike hit our capitol, pretty sure whoever fired it won't be alive much longer to retaliate further, much less strike.

Let's assume there are a handful of nuclear missile silos in North Dakota that are completely safe from the attack. Do you really think the silo commander is going to pick a target and give the order to fire the nukes by himself? These nukes require a chain of command by design so this is virtually impossible. What about an airbase? Is the base commander going to sortie all the fighters on his own without clear orders or objectives? It's not likely.

The intention of the strike would be to hit all of the primary targets simultaneously, so it's not like any significant portion of the command structure would remain after the initial strike, and even if it did, communications would be severely affected so it probably wouldn't matter. It would be up to low level commanders to make BIG decisions in a short period of time with very little information all on their own without being able to coordinate with anyone else in the command structure.

Also, you keep ignoring the physical size of the country. Someone in Wyoming won't be affected directly if a nuclear bomb destroys NYC. The whole country doesn't hinge on one or two cities.

You're absolutely correct. The average person living in a rural area or less populated state probably wouldn't even know the attack was happening at first, and they may not even be directly affected at all. I'm not sure how this is relevant though.

It seems you really want America to be as pathetic as our retard media portrays us. We are not. If our stupid federal gov't falls we have states rights and would love on from there.

I'm sorry if I hit a nerve. I'm just trying to be realistic about how a hypothetical scenario could play out. I obviously don't want any of this to happen.