That means hitting their ports, railroad, road intersections, power plants, sewerage plants etc. To "guarantee" a "Hit" on a secure, protected, and buried missile, you need at least three aimed at it and any potential force that could take out one of those bombs (one estimate that to guarantee a hit a "vital" target in the Soviet Union you will have to use 20 bombs, at least three on the target but 17 more on potential AA batteries, Fighter bases etc to make sure the bombs all arrived at the target). To get closer and closer to 100% guarantee to destroy the target, you needed to keep doubling the amounts of bombs.
This has been known since the 1960s and was the reason for the massive increase in bombs in the 1950s. The Russians reacted to US bomb making and thus ended up with as many as the US did. Both sides only stopped making bombs when they would kill 98% of the population of each side AND to get to 99% they would have to double the number of bombs (i.e. from 6000 warheads to 12,000 warheads to get that additional 1 percentage point).
When the US Navy was ordered to join with the Air Force in the 1950s they were shocked by the demand of the Air Force for 2000 bombs (By the 1960s it was up to 6000 bombs). When the RAF was invited into the US Nuclear Command Center in the late 1950s, they were shocked at the demand for the number of bombs the US Air Force was insisting on. It was so bad that one RAF officer wrote a serious book about it, that Stanley Kublick converted to a black comedy now knows as "Dr Stangelove".
A First Strike has NEVER been viable. It has been the worse case scenario used by the Pentagon to justify the existence of its massive nuclear arsenal. The Air Force embraced it in the late 1940s when it became clear the Strategic Bombing Campaigns of WWII had been the greatest help to Germany and Japan (Both counties had a problem getting their people to move from the inner city communities they had grown up in, to the suburbs were the new factories were. the allied bombing cause people to move thus improving German and Japanese Productively, thus as Allied bombing increases so did German war Production from 1943 to 1945, war production only dropped as Allied troops entered Germany).
Now, the bombing of transportation system and in support of the Troops had been very successful at reducing German and Japanese production but the bombings of cities had been beneficial to German and Japanese production for it moved the workers closer to their jobs.
The Air Force response to this was that they had not dropped enough bombs and with atomic bombs Strategic bombing would now work. The Air Force saw their biggest enemy as the US Navy (not the Soviet Union) and thus you had the big bomber vs super carrier debates of the 1940s (Which was only partially solved in the Korean War, for Strategic bombing again failed to do what its backing said it could do AND worse from the Air Force point of View, the Carrier was shown to be the best way to get air cover over US troops in Korea in the early days of the war).
Now, the US Navy was not innocent in this fight, they wanted the last two Iowa Battleships completed (they had been laid down during WWII, but construction stopped in 1944 do to a shortage of Steel, those hauls survived till the 1958-1959 recession when Congress looking for things to cut, ordered those hauls scrapped) in addition to the super carriers the Navy wanted.
Finally in the 1960s McNamara called together a panel of experts and based on their report indicated that the US could destroy the offensive capacity of the Soviet Union with just 500 bombs. The Air Force did not like hearing that and fought against it for it meant a cut in money for the US Air Force. Vietnam brought with it the demand for more money to be spent on ground forces which caused both the Air Force and Navy to join forces to keep the Army and Marines down (This happened again after 2002, when again you had a war where the Air Force and Navy had at best a side role).
Anyway, back to Nuclear forces. As the Soviet Union nuclear capacity increased in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it became clear that the US and the Soviet Union both had the capacity to destroy each other, i.e MAD, Mutual Assured Destruction. Kennedy and later Johnson used this to stop the expansion of nuclear weapons, but the Air Force saw that as at attack on the Air Force (Kennedy and Johnson had been in the Navy during WWII, so the Air Force suspected both of being pro-Navy and thus Anti-Air Force).
Now, with the end of the Vietnam War, the Air Force found itself fighting for reduced funding and increase cost of an "all volunteer" military (i.e. pay had to increase, the Air Force could no longer rely on getting recruits trying to avoid being drafted into the Infantry). To get increased fund the Air Force played up the capacity of the Soviet Missile force.
If you listened to the US Air Force, the Soviet Union had that capacity to launch a first strike by the 1980s because Reagan refused to adopt the Mobile MX missile launching system the Pentagon was pushing at that time period. When Reagan killed the MX (Limited its deployment to existing Titan II missiles sites) the Air Force claimed its Missiles were subject to a first strike capacity and Congress had to do something about it, but when the Air Force saw the opposition was from the GOP not the Democrats (who wanted to cut defense even more) the Air Force stopped yelling about first strike (One reason for this decision was the Democrats would respond if the US land based missile system would be knocked out, the US would still have its submarine launch missiles for a second strike. thus the Air Force was seeing its Arch Enemy the US Navy come out of top if they pushed the first strike fears so you did not hear about them after the 1980s, remember to the Air Force their biggest enemy is the US Navy).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-118_Peacekeeper#Counterforce_Considerations
A first strike only makes sense if your plan is to destroy the other side but NEVER occupy their territory. i.e make Russia and Siberia a nuclear wasteland. The Soviet missile build up seems to be a response to the US build up, not something that had a life of its own (through by the 1980s the Soviet Union was becoming very bureaucratic and attacking anyone in its ruling elite who were NOT on the same page as everyone else. This is typical of a country about to go through a generations change. In most societies you have a steady flow of people, people retire, other people are hired. It becomes a steady stream with most people promoting people like themselves to replace themselves. Thus the late Soviet commitment to missile parity with the US became an object of their dogma even if it made no military sense).
Every so often you have a generation that comes to power all at once. One such generation was the Generation that fought the US Revolution (President Andrew Jackson was the last of that generation), another is the US Civil War (President McKinley was the last of that generation and his successor was the First President since Lincoln who had not served in the Military OR Government during the Civil War).
Sidenote: President Cleveland had NOT served in the Civil War, but was serving as a District Attorney during the Civil War, thus serving in the Government. President Andrew Johnston was also serving in the Governor, first as a Senator and later Vice President.
We see this again with WWII, Every President from 1933 till 1993 had been in the Military or Government during WWII. FDR and Truman had been in the Government during WWII, Eisenhower had been Commander In Chief in Europe (Truman and Eisenhower had been in service during WWI and FDR had been Secretary of the Navy during WWI). Kennedy has served in WWII, Lyndon Johnson had been in Congress AND had served in the US Navy Reserve in WWII, as had Nixon and Ford. Carter had been in the Naval Academy during WWII, Reagan had been in a Propaganda movie outfit for the Army. The First President George Bush had also served in the US Navy. Clinton was the first President since Herbert Hoover who, as President, had never served during WWII. Hoover had participated in the hunger relief during and after WWII, as he had done after WWI but that was AFTER he was President).
Clinton was the first President since FDR who had NOT been in the Military during WWII. He was of a new generation of Americans. In 1994 the US had its first GOP Controlled Congress since 1948, in many ways this reflect the death of many of the generation who fought WWII i.e those WWII vets, as a whole, did not trust the GOP to the extent the generation that came to power in the 1990s did.
This group also faced a problem the GOP had no real plans to address, the collapse of the Soviet Union. How do you increase spending on defense when your arch enemy no longer exists? It became an open question would the ex Soviet Missiles actual work if launched and would the bombs on those missiles actual work if they arrived at their target? The Russians had been spending up to 40% of the GNP on Defense and that was unsustainable and the chief reason the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia's spending is just 4.5 % of its GNP today and thus is spending no where near the money to maintain its missiles, to improve those missiles and war heads that the Soviet Union had been spending as late as the 1980s.
Thus your comment about a First Strike, right now only one country has the ability to do a first strike on another country's nuclear missiles and that is the USA. Russia has improved their missiles since the 1990s but no where near what the US has. If the Russians would launch 500 missiles to take out the US Missiles (and the US does NOT do a counter-launch with its Sub based missiles) the Russians would find themselves without anyone to sell their oil and other assets to. Their economy will collapse. Thus the Russians will NOT launch such an attack, such an attack calls for retaliation and even if the US decides on no nuclear retaliation, the economic retaliation would be so harmful on the Russian Economy that Russia would collapse (This is the position of General Powell, not only as to Russia but the US, just get rid of those useless Atomic Bombs).
Now, the above ASSUMES that the Russians have more then 500 working missiles at the present time. As I pointed out above that is an open question. China has a larger economy and only maintains a 500 bomb arsenal, but it is universally agreed that those weapons will work, but 500 is NOT enough to give the Chinese a First Strike ability.
My point is I do not thing ANYONE but the US has the ability to do a first strike. Everyone else has decided to spend they money on something they consider of greater importance (i.e. their economy, their conventional forces, bribes etc). To bring back the First Strike Fear is to relive the 1980s and the Air Force Fight for the MX missile (a missile the Air Force Retired in 2005 while keeping the older Minuteman III missiles).
The First Strike is NOT what you need to fear today. If a First Strike was viable the US would launch one on Russia today, but the US has not for the simple reason it is NOT viable. Russia has capacity to get nukes to the US, not as many as the Soviet Union could do in the 1980s but enough to destroy US Offensive Capacity. With that capacity destroyed, all of the advantages of doing a first strike dies with it.
You could probably destroy US offensive capacity with 50 missiles. You hit the top 50 Ports and Air Ports that is enough to destroy the US Capacity to attack. Given that we have become dependent on it could be done with 20 bombs.
Side note: LA and Long beach can be destroyed by one bomb, San Francisco and Seattle two more, Boston, New York, Philadelphia (which would block ships getting to Trenton) would be four more. Baltimore and Norfolk (And the Target is NOT the Naval Base but the Coal export center) would be two more. Charleston would be number nine. Tenth would be Louisiana (A separate port from New Orleans) and hitting Galveston would block Houston. Thus with 11 bombs you can destroy US ability to support any offensive operations in the world via shipping, that would leave Air support. As to the rest of the US Ports, those are NOT big enough to handle what the US has to import (oil) and export (grain and weapons) to support an offensive military operation.
As to Airports, if you destroy the largest US Air Ports by area you restrict exports even more. Here are the top 10 US airports by area, these could be used to support troops overseas:
Denver, CO – 33,531 acres
Dallas-Forth Worth (DFW), TX – 18,076 acres
Fort Myers (Southwest FL), FL – 13,555 acres
Orlando, FL – 13,302 acres
Washington (Dulles), DC/MD/VA – 13,000 acres
Kansas City, MO/KS – 10,200 acres
Houston (Bush), TX – 10,000 acres
Pittsburgh, PA/WV – 10,000 acres
Oklahoma City (Will Rogers), OK – 8,081 acres
Tucson, AZ – 7,938 acres
https://panethos.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/americas-largest-commercial-airports-by-acreage/
The busiest airports are NOT always the largest. Dallas is the Fourth Busiest, Denver is the fifth busiest Air port, but in size Dallas is #4 while Denver is #2. The Second busiest Airport, LA, is #46 is size. The busiest is Atlanta but it is only #30 in size. The Third Busiest Air Port, O'Hara is 14th in size. The Fifth Largest in flights is JFK but it is only the 20th in size. The Sixth busiest is San Francisco but it is 19th in size. The 8th Busiest is Charlotte NC, but it is only the 25th largest Air Port in size. The 9th Busiest, Las Vegas is the 66th largest in area. Miami the 10th business is the 52nd largest.
http://www.airport-technology.com/features/feature-busiest-airports-in-the-us-passengers/
Thus the key is the largest IN SIZE not the largest in the number of passengers. Of the top 20 Airports the three closest to Europe are JFK (#20 in size), Dulles (# 5 in Size) and Pittsburgh (# 8 in size). Only JFK is in the top 10 of these three in terms of passengers.
This is not as critical on the West Coast, we have several Air Force Bases that exceed these limits on the west coast (and thus would be targets more then the smaller Airports).
Just pointing out 20 bombs is all you need to stop US Exports and Imports enough so that the US could NOT support any offensive operations. You would have ports and Airports left, but combined together they could NOT do what the targets the 20 bombs destroyed could support.
The scary part it appears this ability to destroy each other supply lines is what prevented WW-III from breaking out at the end of WWII. While the U-boat threat would not have reappeared with the onset of any US-USSR war in 1945-1949 period, the Soviet Union had the fuel and the technology to defend their supply bases (and along with massive support from French, Italian and even German Communists) and attack US supply lines. Thus if the USSR had attack Western Germany and France, the superior US Navy and Air Force would have destroyed the Soviet Supply lines for such an attack. At the same time, those advantages rapidly declined as US forces crossed the Elbe into Eastern Germany and any such invading US Force would have run out of supplies while before they crossed into Poland. Thus the Iron Curtain reflected military realities more then anything else.
Thus after WWII, both sides accepted the "Iron Curtain" for beyond that point each Army ran into supply problems and until that problem was resolved the chances of gaining anything by going to war was minimal. The US adoption of Containers in the 1960s permitted not only an increase in trade but the ability to provide even more supplies to Europe in times of war. The Soviet response to this was a massive expansion of its Navy so for the first times since 1945 the US Navy had consider an attack on supply lines across the Atlantic. This massive expansion of the Soviet navy and air force in response to the increase ability Containers did to getting supplies to Europe, more then the Reagan Expansion of the US Military lead to the Soviet Union spending to much money on defense and collapsing because of that problem in the late 1980s.
By the late 1980s the Soviet Union decided it was time to retreat and agreed to do so before it collapsed (despite the Collapse, Russian Forces stayed in Germany till it was time for them to withdraw as per the treaty signed by the Soviet Union, this was more do to the need to build new barracks for the troops in Russia then any real desire to stay in Eastern Germany).
Thus a first strike has never been a real military fear. The real fear has been the use of Atomic bombs to destroy the ability to support the armies in the field. i.e. destroy supply lines. If you can destroy the enemies supply lines, you have him defeated without engaging his army. 20 bombs could knock out the US. The Soviet Union is IN EUROPE so its ports are less important, but it does have rail-heads and highways that can be destroyed (but these are both easier to repair then ports). You may have to use more Atomic bombs on Britain, Germany or France, for all three are nearer Russia and thus can use smaller ships and thus smaller ports (but at the same time you may be able to destroy those ports by conventional bombs).
As far as Russia is concern, the US would be better off destroying the Russian transportation system with conventional bombs then retaliating with atomic bombs. The destruction of the Russian transportation system would cause any Russian Military force to be without fuel, food and ammo within a very short time period. Thus what would Russia gain by a First Strike? Nothing for the US has superior Air Power and can use it to destroy any Russian army, unless the First Strike was against US ports and airports and in such a case 50 bombs is all Russia needs.
In many regards the US faces the same problem, if the US did a First Strike on Russia, what would the US Gain? Russia only has to fire 50 missiles at the top 50 transportation hubs of the US and Canada and it would have destroyed the ability of the US to go on the Offensive.
Just pointing out a "First Strike" would quickly be meaningless if the other side concentrate on the side that launches a first strike supply hubs. Destroying Supply hubs is how you win wars today not destroying weapons.
I know the above needs to be rewritten, it has been a couple of decades since "First Strike" became a slogan for more bombs, and since the dismiss of First Strike under Reagan the arguments against it have lied dead along with "First Strike" itself. The arguments are the above, that it was never really an option except in some war room plan that had no basis in reality. Would a US President
NOT launch an Atomic Attack after one has been launched on the US? The answer to that is simple, NO, for he would lose the next election for NOT revenging the losses we suffered in that First Strike. Thus the scenario has no basis in political reality, but it could be used to justify increase spending on Missiles which was the real goal of the people pushing that doctrine. As I said, the above needs re written but I need to go to bed so I am leaving it as is.
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