[Webstral]

I’m far from 100% sold on the idea. I believe I’m the original author of the argument in favor of the Soviets nuking the Mexican refineries and blaming it on the Americans, although it’s possible I appropriated someone else’s idea and developed it. At any rate, I’m not sold on my own idea about France yet. I just like it for its possibilities. If France is the agent, then the Soviets would be jumping on the opportunity presented to them instead of having engineered the circumstances.

I don’t particularly like the idea of the French government being quite so cold-bloodedly ruthless, either. However, the nuclear exchange is going to harden a lot of hearts. The leaders of nuclear armed nations aren’t hapless victims. They have choices to make regarding the power at their command. They are also going to have to think about recovery. When it comes down to it, nuclear decisions are made by a handful of people. One could imagine a wide variety of possibilities regarding the decision-maker in France after the nuclear exchange has heated up. This, of course, is why in the real world such efforts are made to prevent proliferation. The more parties who get hold of nukes, the greater the chance that an individual who doesn’t think the way we’d like him to will take decisive action. The French, being human beings like the rest of us, are as subject to the laws of human psychology as anyone.

Anyway, it’s just a possibility. Who can say how some things happened?