&gt;Revenge is a bad thing, especially in this situation, you do exactly what you condemn, you kill a lot of innocent people.<p>I disagree. The instinct for revenge serves a very important purpose in stabilizing society. If I know you will want revenge should I kill your brother, it makes me less likely to do so, and vice versa. Revenge is also the basis of the justice system, though obviously not its total extent. For example, if you kidnap someone, we do exactly what we condemn and forcibly hold you in a facility for a number of years or life. And yet the moral implications of that are different because of the differing situation.<p>&gt;You try to appear strong, you tell everyone that you will lunch retaliation strikes, but the leaders of this other country don&#x27;t give a shit, they really hate you and launch a first strike.<p>Appearing weak doesn&#x27;t prevent a first strike by our opponents either. In fact, it increases likelihood of one. So if our options are appear strong or weak, and appearing weak has grave consequences, I will appear strong.<p>&gt;You really want to nuke the people of that country? You won&#x27;t hit the leaders and the people didn&#x27;t do anything to you. Chances are that they hate the leaders as much as you do. So why on earth would you do that?<p>The people are guilty of allowing a criminal regime to initiate nuclear warfare against another party. No individual or small clique (small enough to fit in a bunker) can launch a nuclear first strike without the cooperation of a large, representative sample of their nation. They are complicit. They launched a strike. They will suffer and die.